The Leafs are off to an awful start; fixing it won't be easy, but it starts with 2 moves
The Toronto Maple Leafs may be 6-5-2 to begin the season, but the 14 points that they've accumulated through 13 games is actually quite misleading. There have been some great individual performances this season, to be sure, but there are some major issues with this roster as well.
Auston Matthews and William Nylander have been everything the Leafs have needed them to be and more. Morgan Rielly has somehow reached the next tier as a top defenseman in the league at 29 years of age. Joseph Woll has shown glimpses of starting goalie potential and the early returns from Matthew Knies and Nick Robertson have been good.
Unfortunately, the other side to that coin is the atrocious play of John Klingberg, Ilya Samsonov falling apart before our eyes, Ryan Reaves being benched, Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi not exactly clicking with their linemates and Sheldon Keefe making some questionable decisions. There are more downs than ups right now - far too many to mention - and their 6 wins may be doing more harm than good in that when you get the 2 points, the issues seem to matter less.
As The Athletic's Kevin Papetti and Luke Fox point out below, the Leafs have just 3 regulation wins. The only teams with less regulation wins are San Jose, Montreal, Edmonton and Seattle. Pepetti also pointed to the Leafs deserving to lose two of those regulation wins, according to the numbers (Washington and Dallas). So, essentially, we could very well be looking at a Leafs team with just 1 regulation win right now with the way they've played. That doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence.
The Leafs currently own a -3 goal differential, meaning that the opposition has scored 3 more goals against the Leafs than they've allowed. The Leafs have scored a combined 45 goals this season, but have allowed the 3rd most goals in the league at 48. The only two teams who have allowed more goals? San Jose (56) and Minnesota (49). They have also put together the 2nd-worst record in the Atlantic Division over the last 10 games, going 4-4-2 over that span. Only the Montreal Canadiens (4-5-1) have a worse record in the division.
The toughest part about this whole mess is that breaking up the core literally does nothing, since it's the core who are keeping the team afloat right now. All of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and John Tavares are above a point per game. Moving any of them makes the team worse than it is - not better.
Because it's the supporting pieces who are under-delivering, any changes that occur with the roster will have to involve those supporting pieces. Call me crazy, but I don't think John Klingberg and Ryan Reaves have a whole lot of trade value right about now. Max Domi (5 points) and Tyler Bertuzzi (4 points) don't have much more trade value.
There's still time to correct some of the issues and move things around, yes. But John Klingberg isn't just magically going to become an average defender this year, and since he's not putting up points, his presence on the team is a net negative. The same can be said about Ryan Reaves.
If I'm Brad Treliving, you start there with addition by subtraction. Get rid of two of the team's net negative players and replace them with Toronto Marlies recalls to start. At the very least, you're going to get average NHLers in those positions, which would be a net upgrade, even if only temporarily.
The bottom line here is that the team has not been good enough - not by a long shot. If the Leafs want to have any hope of climbing out of the hole they've dug for themselves early, it's going to take time, effort and perhaps a few roster changes.
| POLL | ||
NOVEMBRE 9 | 410 ANSWERS The Leafs are off to an awful start; fixing it won't be easy, but it starts with 2 moves Which Leaf is the bigger problem right now? | ||
| Ryan Reaves | 103 | 25.1 % |
| John Klingberg | 307 | 74.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
