Are the Toronto Maple Leafs ever going to get around to replacing Bertuzzi?

The Toronto Maple Leafs management watched helplessly as the team they stacked with slow defenseman unable to complete a pass or move the puck struggled to score in the playoffs.

The Toronto Maple Leafs were the top scoring 5v5 team in the regular season but their still hard to comprehend moves at the Trade Deadline sabotaged their scoring ability and cost them their season.

In seven games against Boston, the Leafs scored more than two goals just one time. Now, realistically, this is due to the fact that Nylander, Marner and Matthews were all injured to various degrees and Sheldon Keefe forced John Tavares to become a defensive centre for the duration of the playoffs.

It's also due to the fact that the Leafs blue-line with Jake McCabe, TJ Brodie, Joel Edmundson, Ilya Lyubushkin and Simon Benoit was absolutely terrible at moving the puck. Of the seven defenseman they used in the playoffs five of them are way below average at moving the puck. This cost them games.

So how did the off-season go? Not well.

Are the Toronto Maple Leafs ever going to get around to replacing Bertuzzi?

The Leafs added Chris Tanev to their top pairing. He can move the puck better than Brodie. They added OEL who can move the puck better than Giordano or any of his sub-optimal replacements.

That said, optimally, OEL is the 5th defenseman and doesn't really make much difference. The Leafs top four is going to be Rielly, Tanev, McCabe and Liljegren. McCabe is horrendous with the puck, Liljegren is OK, Tanev is fine and Rielly is elite (at moving the puck, not overall).

That's not terrible, but it's also not great. Considering the Leafs forwards, you'd like to have at least two guys who can move the puck at Rielly's level. They basically just added Tanev and called it a day. Make no mistake, he's a good puck mover and way better than Lyubushkin, but he's making a difference defensively, not offensively.

So as far as the blue-line hurting the team's ability to score, the Leafs sort-of addressed this problem. If Topi Niemela ends up on the team it will help a lot, but the most likely scenario is Simon Benoit fumbling pucks and looking brutal.

Up front, things are much worse. The Leafs lost Tyler Bertuzzi. He had the team's highest expect-goals percentage after Auston Matthews and will be missed a ton.

Bertuzzi drove play and made it so the Leafs were on offense more than defense. He's not only gone, but he wasn't even replaced. That is a massive blow to the team's forwards and their overall ability to score.

If Nick Robertson's engine, shot and potential are also gone, the Leafs will have gotten much worse at scoring than the team who couldn't even score three goals in all but one playoff games.

Depth scoring was the Leafs weakness when the season ended and that has only gotten worse, not better.