The Toronto Maple Leafs Bottom-Six Is Brutally Awful Bordering on Atrocious

The Toronto Maple Leafs improved their defense this summer, but their offence got worse.

The Toronto Maple Leafs added Chris Tanev, which is great, but they lost Tyler Bertuzzi, which pretty much nullifies all the gains of getting Tanev.

To make matters worse, the Leafs still have Calle Jarnkrok, David Kampf and Ryan Reaves on their roster for a bizarrely high $6 million dollar cap-hit.

With those players still here, the bottom-six of their forward group looks horrendous. It's both expensive and bad,and, to make matters worse, has basically no upside.

In short, it stinks.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Bottom-Six Is Brutally Awful Bordering on Atrocious

If we look at the current dailyfaceoff page for the Leafs, we can see their estimated third and fourth lines for next season are:

Holberg-Domi-Jarnkrok followed by the NHL's most expensive and worst fourth line in Dewar-Kampf-Reaves.

It should be obvious that the Leafs can't compete with that lineup.

But before evaluating, let's make a couple of changes because it's almost certain that Max Domi was re-signed so that he could play on Auston Matthews wing. He is so bad defensively that using him at centre makes it impossible to get their best players any favorable minutes because of how much a Domi line has to be sheltered in order to succeed.

So let's just replace Domi With Holmberg and move Bobby McMann from the top-six to the bottom-si to make room for Domi up there.

Ideally, I'd like to see Marner at 2C and Tavares at 3C, but the team hasn't shown any indication they'd consider that, so for evaluation purposes, I'm just going to assume everyone is staying at their established positions.

That gives us a bottom-six of McMann-Holmberg-Jarnkrok + Dewar-Kampf-Reaves which is somehow actually worse.

McMann is a nice player, and if Nick Robertson stays then you have the start of a much better third line, but Jarnkrok, Reaves and Kampf are still expensive and not worth anything close to what they're being paid. Let's just assume the Leafs somehow move them off the roster because if they don't they are poorly managed to the point of negligence.

Pontus Holmberg has potential but it's not even worth talking about using him for the full season as the third line centre because it's just such a stupid idea. Dumping Kampf and giving his position to Holmberg is the correct play.

Dewar is not worth re-signing or giving a raise to when the Leafs can have both Easton Cowan and Fraser Minten in their lineup next season for the league minimum.

Alex Steeves needs to be re-signed but he's an obvious replacement for Reaves who is no longer an NHL player.

The Leafs bottom-six could look like this: Cowan-Minten-Robertson on the third line followed by McMann-Holmberg-Steeves on the fourth line.

This gives the Leafs a ton of depth scoring and upside in the bottom of their lineup. It could be even better by having Tavares on 3C and Marner at 2C, but even without those switches I really like this lineup.

But the Leafs don't have to give these minutes to the rookies for the entire season. It's all about auditioning them for an extended time. If they succeed, so much the better. If they don't, there are a ton of options.

As the season progresses, the Leafs will be able to get an understanding of how good these new players are. If they can't hack it, they can be replaced by Marlies or through a trade.

If the Leafs move out Kampf, Reaves and Jarnkrok + they do not sign Jani Hakanpaa, they would have around $5 million in cap space which, if they avoid the LTIR, will grow as the season progresses to the trade deadline, where they can add a star player with the extra money, shoudl they desire.

One thing is certain: the current assumed bottom-six is expensive and hurts the team. Who knows what Craig Berube has in mind, but it's clear that Brad Treliving still has work to do this summer.