Way too early Atlantic division predictions for the Toronto Maple Leafs

3. Toronto Maple Leafs

The Leafs finished last year third in the Atlantic with 102 points.

Treliving made changes to the blue line adding Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson while letting T.J. Brodie, Ilya Lyubushkin, and Joel Edmundson walk. He also added Anthony Stolarz to be a tandem goalie with Joseph Woll while letting Ilya Samsonov walk.

The Leafs forward core is pretty top-heavy right now. Treliving couldn't keep Bertuzzi in Toronto due to the salary cap restrictions with Nylander and Matthews' new deals kicking in. Treliving couldn't add to the forward core and the blue line unless he made a move to clear salary off the roster. He didn't make any deal to do that so now we're stuck with a forward core with little depth.

The Leafs are going to need to see a jump in production from Matthew Knies as well as Bobby McMann to make this forward core effective. You can't expect Matthews to score 69 goals again so you're losing some goals there and you also lose 21 goals with the departure of Tyler Bertuzzi. Unless there are rookies like Easton Cowan who come in and have a great rookie year, they need to find a boost in production from players who were already on the roster. I also don't know if there will be a real effect with the change in captaincy.

Woll and Stolarz is going to be a question mark all year. Will Stolarz be able to handle a large jump in the number of games played? Will Woll be able to stay healthy this year? These are both gambles the front office took at the most important position on the team.

Ultimately, I think they've gotten better. The blueline is old and not anywhere close to as good as it was when Rielly was younger and both Muzzin and Brodie were stars, but as long as Tanev holds up it should be alright.

The Leafs elite forwards will once again assure them of a playoff spot and they may even be healthy when the playoffs roll around for once.