TLN Monday Mailbag: May 16th

Life advice: If you’re going to play sports for six hours at a time, don’t trust Diet Pepsi to hydrate you. It might be tasty, but taste is deceiving. Also, you won’t be able to walk the next day.

Thankfully, a lack of movement has led to me being able to sit down and answer some questions in our fine TLN mailbag. Many people were curious about the same one or two topics, but there was still some variety all the same! Let’s dive in.

This question was by far our most asked this week. To be honest, it’s something that’s a little bit more complicated than trying to answer in a paragraph or two; I could do so, but it wouldn’t give you anything more insightful than somebody flipping a coin for answer 1 and drawing names out of a hat for answer two.

We’re going to have some awesome draft coverage on TLN over the next few weeks. Shawn and the two Ryans will be spearheading it while a few others will join into the fun. Those posts should unlock the secrets to the universe.

If you’re impatient, though, Random.org’s random number generator says that the Leafs should stand pat and draft Will Bitten.

The Raptors and the fans made me somehow more proud and excited for the city where I’ve lived my entire life in. The Jays game just made me really mad at Rougned Odor. Easy choice. Go Raps.

I thought that Tyler Bozak looked the best he ever has this year, in no small part because of how Mike Babcock’s system favours his play style. I used to think that he was a detriment to an NHL team; I still don’t think the’s a top-line forward, but he looks like a useful player on any team that has a remotely modern breakout scheme.

That said, I’d be shocked if he’s still a Leaf three months from now. A good year without Phil Kessel surely helped prop him up as a positive value asset, and quite simply, the Leafs have too many centres for him to compete with now. It was one thing when he was fighting with Mikhail Grabovski, now it’s Nazem Kadri, Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and possibly someone better than the three of them come July. There’s just not enough room.

You can never have too many young players in the pipeline. Not everybody is guaranteed to reach their potential, but if you know what you’re doing and have a lot of opportunities to show that off, you can build an excellent depth chart.

There is one issue though; you’re only allowed to have 50 players signed to NHL contracts in your system at once. A team can’t just go out there and pick 15-20 players every draft, unless they plan on trading their rights very fast or they plan on walking away from a lot of 20-year-olds 24 months later.

Toronto is lucky enough to still be in that transition phase where their adults are still getting trickled out and the pool of youth is still being filled. One more draft with a colossal crowd is a great thing. Always having an extra pick or two is nice. I don’t think you’ll be seeing the Leafs draft over a dozen players every year, though.

Shawn Warford.