We’ve all seen it before when our beloved Leafs are out officially out of a playoff position…
Winning when the fans don’t want them to, has been a Maple Leafs trend of the past. We can all remember the days when Toronto acquired Martin Gerber off waivers and he had a Vezina like finish to the season with the Leafs winning six meaningless games. Of course this moved Toronto down in the draft order to a worse position and they ended up drafting seventh overall that year selecting Nazem Kadri.
Kadri isn’t a failed draft pick by any means, especially if you look at the talent that was selected after him in the first round, only a couple players from 8-30 whom I’d be quite high on. In the big picture, if Toronto had lost four of those six games they would have positioned themselves three picks earlier. Atlanta, Phoenix and Los Angeles were all passed by the Leafs in the final stretch of the season.
Players picked before Kadri included:
(1) John Tavares, (2) Victor Hedman, (3) Matt Duchene, (4) Evander Kane, (5) Brayden Schenn, (6) Oilver Ekman-Larsson.
As you can see the Leafs would have had a few more options, as well as Brian Burke may have had a better chance trading up to get a better pick like he insisted he was going to.
Could this be a sign of things to come in the 2016 lottery draft or will the Leafs end up losing majority of their last ten games?
There are a number of high quality players in this year’s draft, but the top three players really stand out to me and I would be thrilled with adding any of Matthews, Laine or Puljujarvi.
In the next bracket of talent you have Tkachuk who has been playing with Marner for the London Knights. Jacob Chychrun is also a player that the Leafs would consider to add if they fell down to the fourth or fifth draft position. Of course don’t forget William Nylanders brother Alexander Nylander, who could also be a part of Toronto’s plans. The good news is, whatever the Leafs end up doing over these last ten games they will end up with a quality first round player in the top five, as well as another first from Pittsburgh from the Kessel trade.
That’s certainly not the only good news. The Maple Leafs are winning games, and it’s mainly because of a few young rookie additions in Nylander, Hyman and Soshnikov before he got banged up. Gauthier, Brown and Carrick have also enjoyed some time up with the big squad, where Brown got his first point in the NHL and Carrick has four points from the blue line in 15 games in a Leafs sweater.
The youth injection has paid off and the veteran player additions such as Laich, Michalek and Greening have consumed the spark from the young blood coming up through the Marlies pipeline. They are impressed with the drive and commitment from the rookies. Laich has been very positive since coming over to the Leafs in a trade from the Washington Capitals. The Capitals as we know are the best team in the league right now, and to get traded to the worst team in the standings is somewhat of a shocker as you could imagine.
Laich has the right attitude to help mentor the Leafs young players, he seems like a very classy person and a good player to have on your team, on the bench and in the dressing room. Which is refreshing, because I’m sick of washed-up players on the Leafs roster who are “good in the dressing room…, but horrible on the ice. Komisarek is the first player that comes to my mind…
As the wind down of the season continues the Leafs have two difficult games ahead this week as they host Anaheim on Thursday and Boston on Saturday.
It’s a tricky position to be in as a fan. Every win I enjoy, especially when I see Nylander put up a three point game and see his reaction skating back to Bernier at the end of the game, all fired up after a big win. Hopefully this is a sign of many more wins to come over the next ten years. After the last ten years of disappointment, it’s time for the pendulum to swing the other way and Toronto be a consistent contender.
Thanks for reading, enjoy the final stretch of the 2015/16 season.