There is no reason for suspense: The Toronto Maple Leafs off-season performance gets an F-.
The Toronto Maple Leafs ended last season with a loss to the Bruins in overtime of Game Seven thanks to their GM assembling the blue-line with the worst puck-moving ability in the NHL, and the fact that they sat out the trade deadline and entered the playoffs with Ilya Samsonov in net.
You would think that for a GM who is also afraid to make trades, that that would be the nadir, but you would be wrong.
After promising change at their season ending press-conference, the Leafs biggest/only significant addition was a defensive defenseman who is 34 years old that they inexplicably wasted an asset to sign early, and for six years.
The Toronto Maple Leafs get a failing grade for brutal off-season
There isn't a person alive who thinks the Leafs are a top team entering this season. At best, they are behind every team with an elite goalie and most teams with an elite defenseman, of which they have neither.
For the Leafs to enter Matthews' ninth season as a middle-of-the-pack team that needs to get incredibly lucky to compete for their division, the President's Trophy or the Stanley Cup is completely unacceptable.
Just yesterday I wrote that thanks to Dubas keeping the stars together and then putting together a second generation of potential stars, that this could be a very exciting season. I stand by saying that because if everything goes right, the combination of Matthews and Marner with Knies, Woll, Robertson and Cowan could be awesome.
That said, I think that a team who has Marner and Matthews in their PRIMES should be more established as a top team, not entering the season with a "if everything goes perfectly this team could surprise people" dream.
As exciting as this team potentially is, it's also incredibly frustrating that Stolarz has never played 30 games in a season and Woll has about 30 total career games, while the best management could do over the summer was bring in a 34 year old defensive player at the cost of their best left winger.
The last time I saw this team play, they were grinding the hell out of a top team, keeping the score low and playing PLAYOFF HOCKEY to the letter. They couldn't score, and their blue-line couldn't move the puck.
Who watched that series and said "the one thing this team is missing is a defensive defenseman"???????????????????
Brad Treliving, apparently.
To be clear: the Leafs promised change and did not deliver. They failed to address literally every weakness they had. They lost Edmundson and Lyubushkin and added Tanev and Hakanpaa. They couldn't score in the playoffs, but after losing Bertuzzi are now thinner up front and worse at scoring.
I feel I should also bring up the fact that they signed 33 year-old third pairing defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson to one of the worst contracts in the entire NHL.
They did not sign Mitch Marner. The one thing you'd think they couldn't possibly screw up was in net. All they had to do was pair Matthews with a top goalie. Jusse Saros and Jacob Markstrom were available. Jordan Binnington and John Gibson were options. Ilya Sorokin was scratched in the playoffs.
There were at least options, but the Leafs picked the worst possible one. Now it even looks like the one thing that worked out of all Treliving's moves so far - Domi playing the wing - won't happen.
To recap: the Leafs entered the summer with their biggest weakness being their inability to score beyond their top players, their bad goaltending and a blue-line that isn't very good at moving the puck.
If you're keeping score at home, the Leafs went oh for three on addressing those, and to top it off, they got a worse coach, and did not address the Mitch Marner situation. Oh yeah, and they have no third line centre.
I'm sure the Toronto Maple Leafs could have had a worse summer, I just can't think of how.