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Management - A-
The additions made by GM Kyle Dubas leading up to the season have been mostly positive. The Maple Leafs were under budgetary constraints due to the core four of Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander taking up nearly 50% of the club’s $81.5 million budget, and chose not to bring back Frederik Andersen, and could not afford to re-sign wingers Zach Hyman and Nick Foligno.
In goal, Toronto had to replace Andersen and signed free agent Petr Mrazek for three years. The veteran netminder struggled to recover from a groin injury and missed most of the first half but will get a sizable workload during the next month as the Leafs make up their postponed games.
Defensively, the club chose to give young prospects Rasmus Sandin and Timothy Liljegren a long look during the regular season instead of bringing in a hole-plugging veteran similar to Zach Bogosian. The off-season signing of Travis Dermott was questionable (only in the sense that he has reached the ceiling of being a bottom pairing blueliner), but Dubas deserves major kudos in getting Morgan Rielly extended for eight years at a fairly reasonable cap hit.
Up front, Toronto worked some magic with very little room to work with. Re-signing Wayne Simmonds and Jason Spezza for under $1 million kept the pair of veteran leaders in place, while free agents David Kampf, Ondrej Kase, and Michael Bunting were brought in to replace different aspects the Leafs lost with the departure of Hyman.
Kampf (Two years @ $1.5M AAV) is quite effective as a checking center, faceoff specialist, and penalty killer, and Kase has provided secondary offense and been able to step up into the top six when injury/illness struck. Bunting has been an overwhelming success fitting in nicely as a complement with Matthews and Marner and could be in the race for the Calder Trophy with 29 points at the halfway mark.
The one black mark has been the performance of Nick Ritchie, who failed to have chemistry on any line and was placed on waivers after scoring twice in 33 games.
Toronto has also been able to find players who could be contributors outside of the first round of the draft and from undrafted free agents. 2021 draftee Matthew Knies is nearly averaging a point-per-game at the University of Minnesota and is playing for Team USA in Beijing, 2021 fifth-rounder Ty Voit is leading the Sarnia Sting with 45 points, Notre Dame alum Alex Steeves has 12 goals in 24 games for the AHL Marlies and Josh Ho-Sang has 11 AHL goals and is playing for Team Canada in China.
Coaching - A
Since taking over from Mike Babcock in November 2019, Sheldon Keefe has a 91-39-15 regular-season record, and a division title, but a full evaluation of his abilities will continue to be tied to the club being able to advance in the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
Keefe is stern and serious, but not a taskmaster like Babcock, and is willing to try different things to see if they work and gives his star players the time on ice to succeed instead of maintaining rigid and inflexible control.
The 41-year-old bench boss is quick to make changes in line combos or defensive pairings if players are not playing well, and has also not been afraid of demanding more from his team, especially when they are winning but not performing in the way that they need do to have postseason success.
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Lot’s of â¤ï¸ for the 💙ðŸ¤
— Norman James (@IamNormanJames) April 26, 2021
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