Tonight marks the end of the preseason for the Leafs and this year more than ever it seems like everyone is ready for the preseason to end. Maybe it’s that six games are excessive, or perhaps it’s that those six games in conjunction with an already excessive 82-game season make it worse, but the NHL needs to find a way of upping the stakes that games carry more meaning.

Here are some stray thoughts as the preseason comes to a close…

Last preseason Noah Gregor, Nick Abruzzese, Alex Steeves, and Fraser Minten were tied for the Leafs lead in points. The year before Denis Malgin had six points in five games. Before that the Leafs have seen strong performances from Kirill Semyonov, Brennan Menell, and Nick Ritchie that failed to turn into anything in the regular season. The moral of the story is that no of this matters. When you combine AHL try-hards with NHLers who are just out for a skate, there isn’t a lot to take away from the preseason.

Players who have something to lose like Nick Robertson, Max Pacioretty, and Marshall Rifai are going to standout and while you certainly aren’t going to punish them for doing what should be asked of them in the preseason, expecting the good times to continue during the regular season is asking too much. They are giving 100%, results will vary once they are facing an NHL lineup of players also giving 100%.

More or less the preseason is learning about what doesn’t work more than it is about learning what does work and even then there is something to be said for it being too small a sample.

You can point to William Nylander not looking like the solution at centre for the Leafs based on the preseason and with the competition about to get much tougher for him in the regular season the learning curve is about to get much harder to adapt to his new role. It would be easy to pull the plug on it but that ignores the amount of development that can occur in the regular season too.

In regulation the Leafs were 5-5 in their first 10 games last season, the year before that they were 4-6, and in 2021-22 they were also 5-5. None of these are playoff team paces and while not terrible, they were not to the general standard of the organization. The Maple Leafs eventually worked things out and improved. The Oilers might be an even better example. After a dismal start last year they turned things around and went all the way to the Stanley Cup. Taking a bit of time in the regular season to find out where your team is at and make adjustments 10 games into the season is likely a lot more meaningful than anything we’ve seen in the past few weeks.

While saying nothing matters is an exaggeration, the preseason means very little. The training camp, especially under a new coach matters. There is a new direction, new systems, and whether it works or not, it’s a chance for everyone to get used to each other. If you look at it as a job orientation rather than a chance to evaluate players it is far easier to get through this stretch of hockey.

At one point there was a lot of excitement around Nick Abruzzese and the Leafs, but this week saw him clear waivers and return to the Toronto Marlies for the final year of his contract.

Abruzzese is running into the same barrier as similar Marlies playmakers. Both Jeremy Bracco and Semyon Der-Arguchintsev suffered a similar fate as playmaking undersized forwards that had solid performances at the AHL level but couldn’t earn a look at the NHL level.

A top six or bust style of play is always a tough sell but when you take goal scoring out of the equation and there isn’t size to fall back on to use him in the bottom six forward group.

Abruzzese’s advantage over Bracco and Der-Arguchintsev might be that he is a smarter two way player and, in a pinch, could be relied upon as a centre. It is still hard to envision that the Leafs see him as a potential call up in any way.

The best outcome for Abruzzese is that there is an AHL scout for either a lottery team or an offence deprived NHL team out there that thinks he’s worse a look. There is no path to the NHL with the Leafs organization for Nick, but it would be nice to see him get a look somewhere before his contract expires.

If you look at the Leafs immediate lineup needs I’m willing to bet that most people will identify finding a centre as the top priority for Brad Treliving. While that might be the priority for the Leafs it isn’t one that is going to be easily addressed.

Adding a centre isn’t an option, but the Leafs making trades now that could make it easier to add a centre later would make sense.

The further the Leafs get under the salary cap the more flexibility they will have at the trade deadline to take on salary and the Leafs have three prime options to free up some dollars that will benefit the Leafs in the long run.

Timothy Liljegren is not looking to be held in much regard by the Leafs’ new head coach and freeing up $3M makes things like Jani Hakanpaa coming off LTIR or signing Max Pacioretty to a contract an easy thing to do. It is also likely that the Leafs would be able to accrue some cap space in addition to that.

Calle Jarnkrok and David Kampf are another pair of options at $2.1M and $2.4M cap hits respectively. Their no trade clauses complicate things a bit more and in Kampf’s case, moving a centre might not be ideal at this time even if he isn’t the type of player the Leafs are necessarily hoping to use in that role. Bringing in Steven Lorentz seems like an appropriate risk mitigation strategy for David Kampf’s potential departure.

Other players like Ryan Reaves, Conor Timmins, and Connor Dewar might also be considerations if the Leafs don’t see a fit for them this season, but don’t come with the same salary relief or potential for return as the highlighted players above.

Out of that entire group of six there is always the potential for waivers as well. The $1.15M of cap relief per player would still be useful and allows for the Leafs to build their preferred roster rather making decisions based on incumbency.

With players like Marshall Rifai, Phillipe Myers, Nikita Grebenkin, Alex Steeves, Easton Cowan, Steven Lorentz, and Max Pacioretty making their cases for spots in the NHL and potentially offering some upside beyond what the incumbents bring, Brad Treliving has the potential to improve the Leafs just by making some tough calls next week.