Team: 2019-20 Toronto Maple Leafs

Initial Creation Date: Sep. 8, 2020

Published: Sep. 8, 2020

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

This team scares me. they arent built to win now, and they are already so good. Theres no doubt in my mind, that if Kadri hadnt been suspended last year, the Leafs wouldve beat the bruins and gone far in the playoffs. This year they ran into a brick wall in Korpisalo, They definitely outplayed the Blue Jackets in the play-ins.

In my opinion, they have the best forward group in the entire NHL
Matthews and Tavares are a top 3 centre duo in the NHL
Marner and Nylander are both top 20 wingers and give the Leafs areguably the best 1-2 punch on the right wing.
Hyman, Johnsson, Kerfoot and Mikheyev are all top 6 forwards on most teams and yet 2 of them will be on their 3rd line
Their bottom 6 isnt anything to laugh at either. With some combination of Kerfoot, Mikheyev, Engvall, Spezza, Clifford, Barabanov and Johnsson.
Bout of course, we all know that. They defense is where they have issues

Morgan Rielly and Jake Muzzin are untouchable, Rielly is a top 10 defenseman and Muzzin is top 20.
Dermott is an excellent 3rd pairing defenseman but always fails when moved into the top 4, They have to look at this player and ask themselves its worth it to have him on their team if he is going to be a career 3rd pairing guy.
Holl was terrible last year, but played great in a shutdown role with Jake Muzzin this year.
Ceci gets too much hate. No he is not a top pair defenseman, but they should look at mabye bringing him back at around 800k for as a 6th or 7th defenseman. Hes a good defensive player, but hes offense SUCKS.

However their blueline wasnt the problem this year, it was the goaltending. Andersen was terrible, Hutchinson was terrible and Campbell was good but he only played 6 games with them.

After Sheldon Keefe took over as head coach head coach, the defense was around league average, however the goaltending sucked. They ranked 2th in 5v5 SV% and 15th in expected goals against. They were 16th in high danger chances against. Something to note is Morgan Rielly missed 50% of the games they played under Keefe and Muzzin missed 33% of those games. A fully healthy blueline likely finishes around 13th. The powerplay has struggled at times, but it should be fine when you look at the firepower that it has. The penaltykill has been surprisingly good ranking top 10 in many stats after Keefe took over (excluding save percentage where it ranked 23rd) 4th best in xGA and 4th in high danger chances against. Mikheyev and Engvall are both elite penalty killers while Hyman and Kerfoot have both also been pretty good. Kapanen was NOT a good PKer, he was just really fast and relied on his speed to hop on breakaways.

They also have a couple of really good prospects in their system incuding Nick Robertson, Rasmus Sandin and Timothy Liljegren. Not to mention that they also have the 15th pick in this year's draft.

All in all, Kyle Dubas has done a great job as the general manager and should not be taking the blame for this team's struggles. That should go to Andersen and Babcock