The 3 biggest problems facing the Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs are decent, but held back from being a championship calibre team by the following three problems.
The Toronto Maple Leafs had a pretty uneventful summer after declaring that "everything was on the table" at an end of season press conference.
The Toronto Maple Leafs lost last spring for the 8th time in the Auston Matthews Era, having won just a single playoff series over the course of their best player's career to date. Fans, the media, the team and the players were universally frustrated over their iinability to parlay the longest stretch of competitive hockey in the 100 year history of the franchise into any kind of meaningful post-season success.
It was assumed that this would lead to some major changes, but due mostly to a series of no-trade clauses and a management group that appears paralyzed in the face of taking risks, the Leafs barely did anything.
Their entire summer consisted of almost exclusively superficial changes. The Leafs changed coaches and captains and added a defensive defenseman to the roster.
The 3 biggest problems facing the Toronto Maple Leafs
They also brought in a back-up goalie and signed some depth players, but they did not make any changes to the top of the roster, nor did they make any significant additions beyond Chris Tanev, who came at the cost of Tyler Bertuzzi and is therefore hard to consider a major upgrade.
What the Leafs did not do was signficantly improve their depth scoring, increse the number of star players on the roster, add an elite defender, third line centre, or star goalie to their team.
To be fair, Anthony Stolarz does seem like a great signing, but he's also only played six games in a Leafs uniform, so we can't even say it was a successful move quite yet.
Depending on how last night's game went, the Leafs are either 5-5 or 4-6, neither of which consitutes the kind of start they were hoping for. I wrote before the season started that they would need to overcome too many obstacles to truly contend this year, and I haven't seen any reason to change my mind. (some info puckpedia.com).
Here are the three main problems facing the Toronto Maple Leafs
The 3 biggest problems facing the Toronto Maple Leafs
The Roster Is Stale
The Toronto Maple Leafs current general manager and President are in a bit of a pickle. Essentially, they have to prove to new MLSE President Keith Pelley that they should keep their respective jobs, which pretty much means making it to the Conference Finals, at the very least, but they don't have the cap space or assets to make any major moves without doing major surgery to the roster in-season, and they don't have a good enough team to win as is.
Basically they are in a win-or-else situation and seem to have bet everything on whatever Chris Tanev and some minor trade deadline additions can do for them.
That isn't going to go well, however, because their roster is stale. This team has been together for nearly a decade, and given the Pandemic, it somehow feels like longer. The combination of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly and John Tavares has run its course.
Tavares isn't the captain. Rielly has lost a step. Marner's living a hometown nightmare where he somehow takes the blame for everything he can't do + everything the other four have failed to deliver on. Auston Matthews and William Nylander are great but they need to be re-energized.
The team looks stale, and getting a hard-ass coach to play a "north-south" game sounds good on paper, but what this team needs is to let the horses out of the stable. Matthews and Company need to fly high and soar like eagles, not dump pucks in at the blue-line and take shots from anywhere.
Doesn't anyone anywhere think a team with this much talent should score off the rush a little more? That they should look a little more dynamic than they do?
What is this team's identify? It honestly seems like no one cares about the regular season, and that the team is in a purgatory just waiting to be put out of its misery.
A stale roster is a problem and its clearly going to take more than a coaching change to fix it.
Lack of Centres
The Toronto Maple Leafs simply do not have enough quality NHL centres in their lineup.
Auston Matthews is amazing. After that, they only have question marks. By now, John Tavares is probably a better winger than a centre. But they can't even try that, because after Tavares there is literally nothing.
The Leafs didn't sign any centres in the off-season, which everyone took to mean that they'd use William Nylander or Mitch Marner at centre. They gave Nylander about 47 seconds of an audition then mysteriously gave up on the idea.
Tavares was moved down to the third line centre role, and often used in a defensive way. This is confusing because he's a slow player who isn't particularly good at defense. Also, he almost always has either Pacioretty or Robertson with him, and they are both not that good at defense either.
Often times Tavares has been paired with both Robertson and Pacioretty and that is three shooters who aren't known for their passing. It's a very confusing roster decision by the coach, which, unsurprisingly, hasn't been working.
The Leafs have been playing Domi at centre, and ahead of Tavares. This is crazy because he has not been good. Also, Domi is nowhere near as good as Tavares. Domi should never be playing centre, but the Leafs don't really have any choice.
And, if they do the logical thing and put Tavares at 2C, they then have the same problem as last year with is that their 3C is completely inept at playing defense.
As for 4C, they've been using Kampf and he's the most expensive fourth liner in the league. He can easily be replaced by Holmberg for half the cost. Unfortunately, the coach keeps trying to use Holmber in the top nine where he's outmatched.
Its only ten games into the season but the centre ice position has been a nightmare for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
No Number-One Defenseman
Every Leafs defenseman is playing too high in the lineup.
Morgan Rielly is their #1 but he's really more of a two or a three. OEL has been getting #1 minutes, but he's really more of a 5 or a 6 and after a strong start he's fallen back to earth. Tanev is an elite #2 and is likely just as good as most top pairing defenders, but he doesn't score like one, the Leafs appear to be managing his minutes already, which can't be a good sign.
Jake McCabe is a good second pairing guy, but since they try to save Tanev and shelter Rielly, McCabe ends up being used like a top-pairing guy but he's just barely breaking even at 5v5 right now.
The Leafs blue-line is old, fragile and has very limited upside. Worst of all, perhaps, is that it's very slow. Outside of Morgan Rielly, the Leafs blue-line isn't exactly made up of speed merchants.
The Leafs blue-line needs to get younger, it needs to get more talented and it needs an injection of upside. The only way to do this outside of just randomly getting lucky is to trade for an elite defenseman.
In order to that, the Leafs are going to have to part with Mitch Marner or William Nylander.
I made a list of ten number-one defenseman the Leafs could target, but there is realistically only two or three that they could, and even then, only if they are willing to make an absolutely crazy blockbuster trade in the middle of the season.
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Nothing about the Leafs overtly safe management style suggests that they would be into doing that, but if they aren't, it's going to be a very long season and Keth Pelley is going to be sending out some pink slips when it's over.