A lot has been made about the Toronto Maple Leafs injury problems this year.
The reason for that is that people have to talk about something, and its easy to imagine that injuries would explain a lot of the Toronto Maple Leafs problems.
Except that isn't really the case.
Throughout the season the Leafs have had several injuries, but other than the injury to Joseph Woll (a leading Calder Candidate who has stolen at least three, maybe even four games so far this year which the Leafs would otherwise have lost) none of these injuries has been significant.
With the recent news that Mark Giodano is just about ready to return to action, it got me thinking that maybe it would be better if he didn't.
Injuries Are Helping the Toronto Maple Leafs Right Now
While the Joseph Woll injury continues to haunt this team, none of their other injuries have seemed to matter.
Timothy Liljegren missed a lot of time, but this allowed the Leafs to learn that Connor Timmins and Simon Benoit are usefull players. And while Liljegren has promise, and has been able to crush third-pairing minutes, he hasn't exactly ever been an impactful player before in the NHL.
The rest of the injuries actually helped the team.
Signing Ryan Reaves was a horrendous mistake, and that is if they signed him for one year at the league minimum. Flailing new Leafs GM Brad Treliving actually signed him to a contract well over the league minimum, and guaranteed it for three years.
As embarrassing as that contract was the day it was signed, its even worse now that its been established that Ryan Reaves is no longer a capable NHL player. Every day he spends on the I.R is a gift to the Leafs and their GM.
And speaking of gifts, no one has ever gotten a better do-over than Treliving on John Klingberg who saved the Leafs an untold amount of humiliation by being hurt for the rest of the season.
And along these lines we come to Mark Giordano. The NHL's oldest player (and it shows). The Leafs are losing Giordano's minutes by 2 and he has a terrible 47% Expected Goals Rating.
Giordano's numbers are also likely hugely inflated by skating 96 out of his 196 minutes with William Nylander. Together they post a 58% xGoals rating, but Gio drops to a 40% when on the ice without Nylander.
One major issue the Leafs have had this year is that outside of Morgan Rielly, no one on their blue-line is adept at moving the puck. Giordano isn't going to help that, and on top of everything else, the coach has a tendency to overplay and over-trust him, owing to the fact that he's a veteran who is a former star.
Mark Giordano is a formerly good player and he was a pleasant surprise when he first joined the Toronto Maple Leafs, but him getting healthy isn't going to help this team.