The Toronto Maple Leafs have been floating around the five hundred mark for quite some times as they seem to be winning a couple losing a couple but continuing to be in the hunt. Should we be shocked? Absolutely not, there has been a large magnitude of progress made and the culture has been changed without question.
There is still much work to be done, but with Babcock paving the path to glory, the Leafs couldn’t be in better shape at this point of their rebuild. They have been giving each and every team a run for their money and have beaten some of the best teams in the league. Adding and subtracting the right players at this point is going to be the tricky part, my hope is the players make it so obvious they are worthy to be kept and this minimizes the chance management makes an error and ships off the next Alexander Steen or Anton Stralman.
The Leafs have a great defensemen in Morgan Rielly, he’s quality on both ends of the ice and can play on the penalty kill or power play and be effective. But what the Leafs really need to add to get them to the next level is a high end defensemen who can play top four minutes and vastly improve the power play from the point. It’s quite often teams will put a forward on one of the points and then their defensive quarterback to man the power play on their strong side for the one-timer.
As of now the Leafs ice Komarov-Kadri-Nylander up front with Matthews and Gardiner on the point. Now don’t get me wrong, Gardiner has a lot of offensive upside for the man-advantage. But a right handed defenseman like Kevin Shattenkirk is exactly what the Maple Leafs need to get to the next level.
Shattenkirk is a veteran at 27 years old with close to 450 NHL games played and has had three productive seasons in a row with 40+ points. He’s a player I could see reach 60 with ease if he stayed healthy and continued his ways with an up and coming flourishing Maple Leafs team.
The Leafs would not only help stabilize their blue line with the addition of Shattenkirk but they would also add a huge piece to their already dangerous power play. On top of that Kevin is a free agent at season end; perhaps the Leafs could trade for his rights or attempt to pry him from St Louis before deadline? That wouldn’t be easy with the Blues trying to make a big playoff push, so the Leafs just may have to cross their fingers and hope Shattenkirk becomes available as a UFA and they are able to land the big dog himself without paying anything more than salary dollars. With the vast amount of salary dollars opening up after this season, Toronto will surely have enough cash to promote within and add a few quality pieces if they see a fit.
The Leafs will have Hyman, Brown, Smith upfront to resign (if they choose to). Polak, Hunwick, Zaitsev and Corrado will be looking to have their contracts renewed as well. Hyman, Brown, Zaitsev and Corrado will be RFA’s (restricted free agents). It will be the following year that management will have some enormous decisions to make whether or not they want to keep JVR, Bozak and Komarov who will all be UFA’s.
This off season and the next would be the perfect seasons to add a major piece and get this team making leaps in the forward direction as the core of the team will be maturing and gaining more and more confidence playing together.
Next year will be the final year of paying off Tim Gleason and Jared Cowen’s remaining 750k. What an absolute blow mind that Toronto is still paying for Gleason. Great work on those two free buyouts Nonis, I don’t think it’s possible you could have handled the situation any worse than you did; and it was a gift from the heavens as it is. Makes me sick!!
Game day: Leafs vs Avalanche
It will be a later start tonight when Toronto squares off against the Avalanche in Colorado. The Leafs are preparing for a back to back effort as they play again tomorrow in Arizona vs the Coyotes. Obviously Andersen will be starting one of these games, but that hasn’t been determined as of yet. I’m confident Toronto can take both of these games even if they have been crap on back to back nights. The tides have to change eventually, as do the road wins; no better time to start than now against a few struggling Western Conference teams.
Enjoy the game!
Thanks for reading.