Team: 2017-18 Toronto Maple Leafs

Initial Creation Date: Dec. 17, 2016

Published: Dec. 17, 2016

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

The reason the Leafs need to sign Shattenkirk is because they lack a true number 1 defenseman. You may think that Shattenkirk is an offensive defenseman but his corsi-against numbers show that he is very good at shutting down the opposition, albeit in a second pairing role for St. Louis. is corsi-for % is ridiculously good considering how shoots a ton and he stops the opposition from shooting a lot. Babcock is trying to make Rielly that number 1 defenseman but hes more suited in an offensive role. Both Zaitsev and Shattenkirk were signed for 7 years because Zaitsev will be 26 when he signs so the contract will take him through to 33, or through his prime in other words. Shattenkirk will be 28 and being an elite player means having a longer prime which is why he'll be signed through to 35. I also shuffled up the lines to provide more balance in terms of defensive, offensive, and two-way forwards. For the first line I put Soshnikov with Nylander and Matthews to make it a deadly first line to deal with in terms of offense and defensively decent as both Soshnikov and Matthews are two-way forwards. For the second line I left JVR and Bozak together but put a defensive specialist in Hyman with them to balance it out. For the third line, which is a shutdown/offensive line, I put Marner with Kadri and Komarov because Marner is not only good at defense, he's a beast on offense and that'll make that line an offensive and shutdown line as both Kadri and Komarov are excellent two-way forwards. For the "fourth line", I recalled Gauthier from the AHL because he too is a defensive/faceoff specialist, and I put him with 1 offensive player in Leipsic and 1 two-way forward in Brown to make that line both sound defensively and able offensively. For the first defense pair I put Shattenkirk with Rielly so it is not only deadly offensively but Kevin can also fix any mistakes Rielly makes. For the second pairing I left Carrick and Gardiner together because this year they have been excellent in terms of corsi-for %. The "third" pairing, which is more like another second pairing is the analytics -darling Marincin with the offensive yet two-way Zaitsev. The final move I made is signing Jonathan Bernier. I think he'd be an excellent back-up to Andersen, and it'd be nice for him to win a cup with us.