Toronto Maple Leafs Should Look to the Panthers to Fix Defense, but Not Montour

The Toronto Maple Leafs should copy the Florida Panthers when it comes to building their blue-line, but that doesn't mean they should pay big money for in the UFA Market.

The Toronto Maple Leafs should have no interest in free-agent defenseman Brandon Montour when, and if, he hits the open market on July 1st.

Montour is a great player, but he's also the kind of player who is obviously a bad buy as a free agent.

Don't get me wrong - he's a great player and a right-handed puck mover is something the Leafs need. It's just bad business to buy players after they are good, especially a late-bloomer who might only be good in his current situation.

If another Zdeno Chara ever comes on the market, but all means, go nuts. But Montour isn't a franchise player, and if he gets to free-agency, he will likely be paid like one.

The Leafs do need to copy Florida, but what they need to copy is their strategy, not their exact players. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Toronto Maple Leafs Should Look to the Panthers to Fix Defense, but Not Montour

The Panthers acquired Montour from the Buffalo Sabres in April of 2021. They traded a 3rd round pick for a 26 year-old right-shot defenseman.

They bought low on a former second-round pick who had only played his entire career on bad teams.

The Panthers added Montour to a blue-line that, at the time, featured three other puck-movers: top pick Aaron Ekblad, Waiver Pick-Up Gustav Forsling, the home-grown Mackenzie Weegar and two bangers - Ben Chiarot and Radko Gudas, who eventually were swapped out for the better puck-moving of an Ekman-Larsson / Dmitri Kulikov 3rd pairing.

The Leafs should pay particular attention to the fact that Florida, as they got better, swapped out their Edmundson/Lyubushkin types for better puck movers.

The Panthers were able to trade Weegar when they two replacements in Forsling and Montour, but the Leafs aren't there yet because they still need Liljegren and he doesn't have that kind of trade value anyways. There is not going to be a direct one-to-one correlation, but the Leafs still follow the Florida Model pretty closely if they want to:

The main thing to copy: 3 puck-movers in the top four, all four top-four skaters are excellent skaters, look for value, make sure the 3rd pairing can still move the puck. Unlike the Leafs, the Panthers employ two stay-at-home defenders, but one is an elite skater and the other is a decent puck mover.

Let's say the Leafs move Jake McCabe to the third pairing and use Simon Benoit as their #6. Now they have 3rd pairing about half-way between Chiarot/Gudas and OEL/Kulikov. Their third pairing can hit, defend and adequately move the puck. McCabe is probably better than anyone Florida has used on their 3rd pairing. Benoit is a bad puck-mover but should be fine in the Kulikov role, as cheap as he is.

What they need to follow the Florida Model is another two CHEAP puck-movers. They have one of them in Liljegren.

The Panthers have Ekblad, Forsling, OEL, Kulikov. The Leafs have Rielly, Liljegren, McCabe, Benoit. The Panthers lineup is better, but the Leafs isn't bad.

In order to get their current blue-line, the Panthers bought low on Montour and found waiver-wire gold in Forsling. They signed UFA defenseman Niko Mikkola who is a physical presence who can skate that they use in their top-four.

Ekblad = Rielly, Forsling = Liljegren, OEL= McCabe, Kulikov = Benoit. To complete the Florida Model, the Leafs need to find a physical top four player who can skate, and an offensive puck mover.

They really don't need to spend a ton to make this happen. In a perfect world, they could somehow get a Dougie Hamilton, Cale Makar or Mikko Heiskanen type elite defender. That likely isn't happening, but the next best thing is to find a puck-mover who skates like Montour that you don't have to pay $8 million for.

After that, you just need a physical defender who is a strong skater who can patrol the top four.

I wish I had a list of names, but I don't. Still, the Leafs have the biggest off-ice budget in the league and should be able to find two such players. The key is that spending big in free-agency is almost always a bad move. Value must be found.

The Leafs need two defenseman to compliment Rielly/Liljegren/McCabe/Benoit. Two great skaters, one who hits and one who passes and ideally has a rocket for a shot.