Daily Faceoff's Frank Seravalli thinks the Leafs are planning to upgrade in net
Friday's most recent episode of The DFO Rundown contained something of interest for Leafs fans, as Daily Faceoff's Frank Seravalli touched on what the Leafs plan to do with Jack Campbell and Petr Mrazek amid their obvious struggles heading towards the trade deadline.
Seravalli touched on Campbell's .890 save percentage since December 7th and brought up the fact that the Leafs' goaltenders have combined for the league's second-worst save percentage since the beginning of December, but raised a very interesting question; are the Leafs' issues goaltending issues, or are they defensive issues?
If the Leafs were to acquire a defenseman like Jakob Chychrun, Hampus Lindholm, or to a lesser extent, Mark Giordano - would it make enough of a difference in Toronto that they would no longer be putting themselves in a position to be scored on as frequently as they have been?
Acquiring a big name defender certainly has a bit of a cascading effect on the roster. It pushes players down to where they probably should be playing, rather than where the Leafs need them to play. For most of the season, defensemen like Timothy Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin have been third pairing guys, and they've excelled there. However, when they're moving up the lineup, they're excelling less and struggling more. Bringing in a defender with legitimate top pair or second pair experience would push the youngsters back down to the spots that they're better suited for at this stage in their young careers, so it certainly wouldn't make the team any worse.
Seravalli was also asked if there were any real tangible upgrades for the Leafs who are believed to be available if the Dallas Stars elect not to move Braden Holtby and if the Isles have no interest in moving Semyon Varlamov. The only name that Seravalli could come up with is Marc-Andre Fleury - and there's no guarantee that the veteran netminder would even accept a trade to Toronto. In addition, Fleury's enormous cap hit is another issue entirely.
The big eyebrow-raiser from Seravalli on the program was this comment with the March 21st trade deadline looming:
I don't know how Toronto could possibly go into the playoffs at this point, given what we see right now... maybe someone rights themselves, Jack Campbell or Petr Mrazek - one of them steps up to grab the crease... short of that, I don't know how they could go to the deadline and not address the position.
If you're a Leafs fan, it's tough to disagree with what Seravalli is saying here. Every year, we see a clutch game-winning save. If you don't have a guy who can do that for your team, it's really hard to win. For a short time, Campbell shows us that he could come up clutch in certain situations. Now we're seeing the other side of that coin. If the Leafs are of the mindset that Campbell can't be the guy to make the big save more often than not, then perhaps it's time to address the issue, because as we all know, this is a very important year for the blue and white.
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