Leafs President Brendan Shanahan admits to steering the Leafs down a more skilled road than a gritty one
The Leafs have had a tough go of it so far this season and most of what is preventing the Leafs from finding success is a lack of goal production. It sounds insane to think that one of the highest scoring teams a year ago is struggling to score, but that's exactly what is happening. The Leafs' lack of scoring appears to be linked to a questionable work ethic and execution more so than it is to the actual skill of the players on the ice. So what happened?
One of the issues that the Leafs have struggled with this season is their lack of an identity. The top six is built to score and the bottom six is built to grind it out and defend Leafs. Well, the problem there is when your top guys aren't scoring goals, there's no lead for your bottom six to protect, so their minutes are essentially played without a purpose. None of the Leafs' bottom six guys is what you'd consider a depth scoring guy, with the exception of maybe Alex Kerfoot, who had 51 points playing in a during role last season. Pierre Engvall should be able to chip in after scoring 15 goals last year, but even he has been relatively vanilla to start this season.
In years past, Leafs Nation has begged and pleaded for a couple of wrecking balls on the team that hit everything in sight. Well, Dubas has since brought in Kyle Clifford, Wayne Simmonds, Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Zach Aston-Reese to help in that department. The problem is, none of them are going to go out and get you that big goal that you need late in a game.
This Leafs team has gone through a series of transformations year over year since Kyle Dubas took over as GM in 2018, but most of his early additions to the team weren't the grittiest guys around. Lately, he has made a bit of a shift towards more toughness, but surprisingly enough, it wasn't team President Brendan Shanahan who pushed for it. Actually, it might surprise you to find out that it's actually quite the opposite.
During an appearance on the "SmartLess" podcast with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett a year ago, Shanahan actually admitted that big fights and big hits don't really excite him, despite the fact that that's exactly how he played the game. He also has a few Championships under his belt because of it.
"If I see a fight in hockey and it's because someone was protecting somebody or somebody was bullying somebody and you're addressing it. There's probably still a place for that in hockey but using it as a tool to intimidate or hurt, I don't know, it's going away from that."
You have to wonder if that played into Nazem Kadri being traded or the Leafs going out and getting themselves another one of those players who plays on the edge. Regardless of whether or not the sport is "going away from that" it hasn't gone away from that yet. And if you're not playing that way, you're getting beat when it matters most - in the postseason. Even now, if the Leafs were playing with a little more urgency and intensity, we're likely not struggling so much to start the year.
Either way, the Leafs are struggling right now and all the skill in the world isn't going to help them unless they play with more intensity, passion and purpose. Sometimes that means playing on the edge. Shanahan should know that better than most - and when you don't have guys in your lineup like that on a nightly basis, it's tough to compete against the teams who do.
| POLL | ||
OCTOBRE 30 | 542 ANSWERS Leafs President Brendan Shanahan admits to steering the Leafs down a more skilled road than a gritty one Are you surprised to hear Shanahan downplaying the importance of hits and fights in hockey? | ||
| Yes | 387 | 71.4 % |
| No | 155 | 28.6 % |
| List of polls | ||
