Leafs appear to make crucial error, trading scoring winger before he broke out
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been searching for a cheap, versatile, and dependable scorer for their bottom-6 to complement their core players in Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and John Tavares for years. Unfortunately they might have given up early on exactly that in Michael Carcone.
The Ajax native played for the Toronto Marlies during the 2018-19 season after being acquired in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Josh Leivo. Carcone scored 14 goals and 27 points in 42 regular season games for the Marlies before adding 6 goals and 10 points in 13 postseason tilts.
He was traded in the off-season to the Ottawa Senators as part of the package that also included Connor Brown and Nikita Zaitsev. Carcone has only improved since the 2018-19 season including a monumental campaign last season where he scored 31 goals and 85 points in 65 games for the Tucson Roadrunners. He's translated that success to the tune of 14 goals for the Arizona Coyotes this season.
What's been impressive about Carcone's season is that he has scored more goals than the likes of Brady Tkachuk, Nate MacKinnon, Jack Eichel, Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and Connor Bedard. He leads the NHL in 5-on-5 goals with 12, even though he ranks 477th in 5-on-5 ice-time with just 297 minutes and 52 seconds. Carcone has also only played in 12.5 minutes on the power play through 27 games - with just one goal with the extra attacker.
Even just amongst his own teammates on the Coyotes, Carcone ranks 19th in ATOI at just 11:02 but he has taken full advantage of his ice time, thanks in large part to his incredible 35% shooting percentage - 14 goals on just 40 shots on goal. He has 1 more goal than Lawson Crouse, 5 more than Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, and 8 more than Nick Bjugstad.
Although this type of success will be damn near impossible to sustain, his track record is nothing to scoff at either with 103 goals and 222 points in 269 games in the last 5 seasons at the AHL level. That type of consistency is hard to come by even in the minors and now that he's finally given the opportunity, he's proving his worth in the big leagues.
Carcone could have definitely helped the Maple Leafs this season with their secondary and tertiary scoring as Calle Jarnkrok has the most goals (7) and points (16) outside of the core-4. Carcone has as many goals as Max Domi has points, he has over double the amount of goals that Matthew Knies has produced, and he has essentially doubled the amount of points that Tyler Bertuzzi has provided.
| POLL | ||
DECEMBRE 16 | 649 ANSWERS Leafs appear to make crucial error, trading scoring winger before he broke out Do you think the Leafs have showcased poor asset management with their prospects and draft picks? | ||
| Yes, glad Dubas is gone | 482 | 74.3 % |
| No, our asset management has been fine | 167 | 25.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
