The worst thing about the Toronto Maple Leafs awful - to date - summer is that with everything they did, their blue-line isn't even guaranteed to be better than it was at the start of last season.
Tasked with a mandate of change, Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving is bringing back four members of the worst of 16 blue-lines that entered last year's playoffs.
Morgan Rielly, Timothy Liljegren, Jake McCabe and Simon Benoit will be back.
Replacing Joel Edmundson and TJ Brodie are Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
And I'm supposed to be impressed by this?
The Toronto Maple Leafs Blue-Line Isn't Good Enough, But It Might Be
Chris Tanev is a great defense-first defender who can also move the puck. As long as he doesn't decline like almost all players his age do, and as long as he doesn't get injured, which he almost always does, the Leafs will have signed a great player.
OEL is 33 and last year he has to sign a one-year deal for $2.5 million. The Leafs gave him a 33% increase, a four year contract and a modified no-movement clause.
Why? I couldn't even hope to explain what they are thinking. Paying mid-range playerse more than the league minimum is a mistake almost 100% of the time, and the only time it isn't is when that player has upside.
OEL is a 3rd pairing defender with good puck moving skills. But what the Leafs are failing to understand is that in the NHL the total value of non-star players is very small. The best non-star player and the league's worst players are not significantly different.
OEL is a slight upgrade over Joel Edmundson but in a best case scenario this won't even be worth a single win over 82 games. To give out this contract when the Leafs could have just played Kokkonen or Niemela, used the money somewhere else and took a slitght hit on the quality of their 5th defender, they would have been better off.
Essentially the Leafs "improvement" of their blue-line is based on a 34 year old who averages 15 or so missed games per season. Four of the other guys are the exact same, and OEL is only a very tiny upgrade over what they had.
If everything goes perfectly they will be better:
- Chris Tanev, 34, is healthy for every game and the playoffs.
- Jake McCabe who is 31 doesn't decline and finds consistancy for the first time in his career.
- Morgan Rielly, 30, avoids declining any more than he has to date.
- Timothy Liljegren, scratched every year in the playoffs, finds his game and becomes a solid top-four option.
- OEL, 33, avoids decline.
- Simon Benoit, or a rookie, proves to be playable and above replacement level.
You notice a few things about this blue-line: They are old, most of the players have a history of inconsistancy, they don't have a high-end number-one defenseman, they are injury prone, and have almost no upside, by which I mean there is almost a zero-percent chance that one of these guys has an unexpected star season and gives you a significant contribution above what is expected.
This is a very decent group that one-to-six is above average, but stars are so important in the NHL that every single team with a better number-one and a worse group on average is going to be better than what the Leafs have.
The Leafs blue-line is really good - in a best case scenario situation. Most likely, the Leafs blue-line is an expensive abomination which turns into a punch-line by early December.
The risk here doesn't come close to justifying the reward.
I hope I am wrong, because I would really love to watch the Leafs somehow make me eat these worsds by returning four of six players from the league's worst blue-line (or at least the worst one that made last year's playoffs) by signing two with the combined age of 67.