Monday Mailbag: Oh wow, we won a game

Good news everyone. I’m starting to actually like doing these things, so here I am, answering all of your questions again!

My prediction going into the second half of the season is that the Leafs will continue on this trend of playing .500 hockey with random spurts of amazing hockey (that will coincidentally happen when ever Roman Polak is out of the lineup), and then the Leafs will walk into the playoffs and get destroyed by either Tampa or Boston.

Honestly, unless he wants $2 million or less, let him walk. You could find a better third line centre either in free agency or in William Nylander, so unless he wants to sign a cheap, one year deal, I wouldn’t really consider bringing him back.

Do I want JVR to get a shot on the Matthews line? Yes, it seems like JVR isn’t a bad play driver when he’s not with Bozak, so he could probably excel on Matthews and Nylander’s line.

Will he ever get that shot? Nope. Babcock hardly breaks up that line, and when he does, it’s to demote Nylander and promote Brown.

With Marleau not having a single point in 2018, Kadri having two points since Nov. 30, and Komarov only having two points in 2018, it’s clear that this line isn’t really working out anymore. Despite the lack of production, they rank 3rd, 6th, and 4th among Leafs forwards in ice time per game, while some of the more productive players during that span in JVR, Bozak, Marner, and Brown rank 7th to 10th. Not exactly great line deployment.

Honestly, until Babcock either changes the lines or starts deploying them better, we’re probably gonna keep seeing this. This shutdown line hasn’t been gelling recently, and that needs to change one way or another.

“Guys, if we pull away with a win tonight, I’m going to take all of you to Chuck E Cheese’s, my treat!”

Well, since you said please, I guess we can.

Because we’re Leafs fans. It’s not allowed to be easy for us.

Yes. Since joining the Leafs, Martin has been a healthy scratch once, on November 25th against the Hurricanes. In that game, the player who subbed in for him, Josh Leivo, scored a goal, and yet he’s only been in six games, while Martin hasn’t missed one since. For some reason, Babcock thinks Martin is essentially to the lineup, so I highly doubt he leaves the lineup.

At this point, the Leafs will probably be buyers, considering their hole on defense, and the fact that they are contending for a playoff spot. However, I don’t think that they will actually buy, I think they’ll look at keeping JVR and Bozak around for the playoff run as “buying” this deadline, which I don’t mind, because I don’t see the Leafs going far this year, considering how good Tampa and Boston have been this year. They either need to go big, or don’t bother, because minor improvements won’t put them over the top.