There are a few Toronto Maple Leafs tough decisions coming up in the next couple weeks. They’re well into the preseason, the easy cuts have already been made, and they’re close to reducing the roster to what should be the roster on opening night. What’s next?
Toronto Maple Leafs Tough Decisions Are Coming
There are still five pre-season games remaining, including tonight’s game against the Buffalo Sabres. Auston Matthews will get the chance to keep pace with the four goals John Tavares has scored in two games. Matthews has one in one game. While preseason scoring by the team’s top players is fun, it really means next to nothing. What does matter is how the fringe players are performing.
The Fourth Liners
Newcomer Par Lindholm did not look out of place in his first preseason game. He should return to the ice tonight. While the sample size is small with Lindholm, it appears he’s well on his way to earning the fourth line center role. Frederik Gauthier, another potential candidate but considered a long shot by many, has already missed one game due to a shoulder injury.
Tyler Ennis May Be A Third Liner
Another newcomer that was expected to fight for a spot on the fourth line but may end up with a much bigger role is Tyler Ennis. With two goals against the Ottawa Senators, Ennis is not only trying to make the opening night roster, but he’s also looking for a spot on one of the top three lines. There a couple factors that are helping Ennis out.
The first is the William Nylander holdout. Ennis is spending time on the top line with Matthews. When you get top line time and score goals, coaches tend to notice.
The other factor is it appears Mike Babcock is interested in seeing Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen start on the fourth line. They played together on the fourth line last year and having their kind of speed on a fourth line is appealing. Circling back to Lindholm, there is already talk of how that trio would play together with Lindholm commenting on their speed and how he can play with them.
Babcock also had some post-game comments on Lindholm’s group.
“I thought Lindholm’s group was real solid for us, too. They gave us another line. They played against their best line for most of the night, so I thought they did a good job.” Mike Babcock after the Maple Leafs beat the Senators.
Tough Decision Number One
Babcock hasn’t been all positive on Johnsson and Kapanen. He’s pushed them to work harder and get better at keeping the puck. But it’s hard to think they won’t make the team. The bigger question is where? Many, myself included, assumed Johnsson would have a spot on the third line. And Kapanen would have to take a third line spot from Connor Brown.
Putting both Johnsson and Kapanen on the fourth line doesn’t seem like a tough decision until you consider the fourth line may not be seeing many minutes once the regular season starts. Is putting two young, developing players, players that the team is hoping can be goal scorers, on a line that will only see a handful of minutes a night a good decision? Considering the Maple Leafs glut of forwards and where these two are in their development, it feels like every decision available has a considerable downside.
On the one hand, they can keep them with limited ice time, something most people say is harmful to a player’s development. Or on the other hand, they can give them more minutes, third line minutes. But that would potentially be at the sacrifice of ice time for players that have better earned that time. That’s not something Babcock is likely to allow. Johnsson would have to clear waivers, but it’s not out of the question that Kapanen sees AHL time this season if only to get him ice time. There isn’t an obvious best answer as to where these two should play just yet.
Tough Decision Number Two
The next tough decision that is beginning to loom over the Maple Leafs is what to do with the plethora of goaltenders they have. Specifically, the three that are fighting for the backup role. Curtis McElhinney has been stellar with 32 saves on 33 shots. He’s showing he’s still got it and is ready for another season is excellent backup goaltending.
Garret Sparks looked good in his first game of the preseason, but allowed three goals last night and had only nine saves in half a game’s work. If McElhinney is clearly the better option for the backup role this season, what to do with Sparks becomes a major dilemma.
None of McElhinney, Sparks, or Calvin Pickard can avoid waivers. There is a chance that none will make it to the Toronto Marlies. Maybe Pickard would and if the Maple Leafs lost him, it might sting a bit, but it isn’t terrible.
What Are The Options?
If either McElhinney or Sparks could slip through to the AHL, there would be no issue, but assuming that doesn’t happen, the Maple Leafs are stuck with two unappealing options.
The first is that they lose Sparks, either to waivers or via a trade. If age doesn’t catch up to McElhinney, he’s 35 and will be 36 by season’s end, then it may be fine for the Maple Leafs this year. Maybe even next year. But it’s a just a matter of time before McElhinney retires. These days the backup role in the NHL is a big deal. Teams need a player that can play a quarter of the season and win more than they lose. If the Maple Leafs lose their young goaltenders, the backup role will eventually become a problem.
Ideally, Sparks is capable of taking that role indefinitely. But if the Maple Leafs lose McElhinney, and Sparks turns out to not be capable, the Maple Leafs will have a backup goaltending issue this year. Although if they are able to keep Pickard, he may be an option. But the same question applies to him. Can he win more than he loses in the NHL?
A third option is to keep both McElhinney and Sparks on the roster to start the season. It will give them a little more time to see if Sparks can perform. And it may help raise the value of either in a trade. McElhinney is used to going long periods of time without playing, so having him on the roster but not playing won’t hurt him. It will prevent the Maple Leafs from keeping eight defensemen on the team. The good news here is that the majority of the defensemen that would hold that seventh or eight spot can be sent to the Marlies without needing to go through waivers.
More To Come
As the Maple Leafs get closer to the start of the regular season, the questions will keep coming up. What will the power play look like? Although they seem to already have an idea. How will the Nylander contract shake out? And possibly most interesting, which defensemen will make the team? They’ve got less than two weeks to find their answers.
