Brad Treliving&#8217;s 2024 offseason was ~better~. It wasn&#8217;t the groundbreaking offseason every fan longs for and there wasn&#8217;t necessarily a &#8220;big fish&#8221; per se, but if you compare it to last season, where the only player he gave term to was a 36-year-old Ryan Reaves, and had to pivot to John Klingberg to fill a role on the second pairing after losing out on Matt Dumba, he certainly did better this time around.
Although they lost Tyler Bertuzzi, one of last year&#8217;s aforementioned one-year deals, to the Chicago Blackhawks, they were able to retain Max Domi at an affordable price for four years and significantly improved their defence. Chris Tanev, age and injury concerns aside, is easily the best partner Morgan Rielly has ever had (assuming the two play together) and Oliver Ekman-Larsson saw a nice bounce-back en route to a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers. There&#8217;s also the still up-in-the-air Jani Hakanpaa situation, which feels like it will be a bonus if that deal ends up going through. They also improved their situation between the pipes, giving Joseph Woll a nod of confidence with a new three-year contract and replacing Ilya Samsonov with another Cup winner in Anthony Stolarz. In the end, they replaced T.J. Brodie, Ilya Lyubushkin, and Joel Edmundson with Tanev, Ekman-Larsson, and Hakanpaa if that signing ever becomes official. On paper, that is objectively better than what they went into last season with.
Where they didn&#8217;t improve, on the other hand, was up front. In fact, they got worse there if anything. They didn&#8217;t sign a single NHL forward in free agency, outside of extending a professional tryout (PTO) to a third member of the Cup-winning Panthers roster in Steven Lorentz. On the other hand, the only player they lost in that regard was Bertuzzi, but still &#8211; that&#8217;s 43 points out the door.
So, what does that leave Toronto with on the left side up front? They&#8217;ve currently got Matthew Knies and Bobby McMann staring down the barrel of their sophomore years, an unsigned and apparently unhappy Nick Robertson, and a variety of forwards who can play any forward position including Calle Jarnkrok, Connor Dewar, and Pontus Holmberg. There&#8217;s also a budding belief that they&#8217;re going to give 2023 first-round pick Easton Cowan a legitimate chance to make the roster, and then there are Marlies bubble players such as Alex Steeves looking to make the roster for once and for all. There&#8217;s admittedly not a lot of pedigree there, but when your two best wingers are on the right side, perhaps that&#8217;s to be expected.
With no Bertuzzi and a lot of question marks on the left side, your first instinct might be to think that the Leafs dropped the ball by not adding anybody up the left side, and while they will certainly need an upgrade by the time the trade deadline rolls around, they&#8217;re actually set up much better on the left side than they have been in recent years. I would give last season&#8217;s LW depth the edge over this year&#8217;s just because of Bertuzzi, but beyond that, people often forget just how awful their depth was in the years prior to that.
In 2022-23, Michael Bunting was their top option up the left side. You can do a lot worse than Bunting, who was coming off of a breakout season that saw him record 63 points in 82 games the year prior, but his production fell in the last year of his deal with only 47 points. Behind him, if you recall, they had a gaping hole on the left side and started the season with Denis Malgin skating on the left side in the top six. Yes, that Denis Malgin. The one who former general manager Kyle Dubas acquired in exchange for a then-Marlies-ridden Mason Marchment, who has since gone on to carve out a pretty solid career. It&#8217;s not his fault the old GM overvalued him and undervalued Marchment, but still, starting him in the top six was a plan bound to fail from the start, and the experiment only made it 23 games (with four points in those games) before he was traded to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Dryden Hunt. After that was Pierre Engvall, who was traded to the New York Islanders at the deadline, and Zach Aston-Reese, a fine fourth-line forward who more or less lost his job when Knies joined the team for the playoff run.
In 2021-22, they had the benefit of Bunting&#8217;s breakout season working in their favour, but let&#8217;s not forget who started the season skating alongside Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner &#8211; the man that Don Cherry once vouched for the Leafs to draft instead of William Nylander, good ol&#8217; Orangeville boy Nick Ritchie. From the moment Ritchie joined the Leafs, it just wasn&#8217;t a match meant to be. He was a significant step slower than anyone else on the team and had trouble keeping up with the line he was on, and he was traded to the Arizona Coyotes in a deal for Ilya Lyubushkin after managing only two goals and nine points in 33 games. They did have the benefit of a 51-point breakout season from Alex Kerfoot, but he was used all around the lineup rather than strictly on the left side.
Just for fun, let&#8217;s take things back one more year to the COVID-stricken 2021 season. This was the last season they had Zach Hyman in the blue and white (and not the 54-goal-scoring Zach Hyman either). They started the season with Jimmy Vesey skating alongside Matthews and Marner on the top line, but with only five goals and seven points in 30 games, he was eventually waived by the team and claimed by the Vancouver Canucks, and not before he was called &#8220;very vanilla&#8221; by then-head coach Sheldon Keefe, conveniently captured on camera and broadcast to the world on the Leafs&#8217; &#8220;All or Nothing&#8221; Amazon Prime documentary. Speaking of that documentary, let&#8217;s not forget about how they did an entire segment on how the Leafs &#8220;rebuilt&#8221; former third-overall pick Alex Galchenyuk, who was on his sixth NHL team at that point and finished the season with 12 points in 26 games. He was regularly skating on the second line with John Tavares and William Nylander at that point, and then Nick Foligno in Tavares&#8217; spot after the latter suffered a gruesome concussion in Game 1 of the first round.
The point I&#8217;m trying to reach here is that while it might not be an optimal situation, you can do a lot worse than what the Leafs currently have on the left side. Knies has an extra year of experience under his belt and certainly won&#8217;t max out as a 35-point player, and you could make the same argument for McMann, who scored 15 goals en route to 24 points in 56 games in his late-blooming rookie season at age 27. Sure, the Leafs probably won&#8217;t want him on the second line by the time playoffs roll around, but he didn&#8217;t look out of place by any means and if nothing else, proved that he can hang there in a pinch.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
MATTHEW KNIES HOW DO YOU DO!!!! <a href="https://t.co/tzb4wXChdH">pic.twitter.com/tzb4wXChdH</a>
&mdash; Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) <a href="https://twitter.com/MapleLeafs/status/1785489859668279523?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 1, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Then there&#8217;s Robertson, who seems hellbent on getting out of Toronto despite having a golden opportunity in front of him to build his value back up and become a legitimate contributor under a new head coach. Whether or not he decides to sign is going to drastically shape the outlook of the forward group this season, but having him under contract and in a top-six role would be a pleasant surprise at this point. If he doesn&#8217;t sign, there have been rumours circulating about the Leafs <a href="https://theleafsnation.com/news/maple-leafs-among-teams-interested-in-signing-max-pacioretty">being interested in</a> veteran forward Max Pacioretty. In his own words, he wasn&#8217;t himself last season and battled injuries for much of the season, and if he manages to stay healthy, could contribute 15-20 goals.
Either way, if the Leafs&#8217; lack of star power on the left side this season ever bothers you, I implore you to take a look into the past couple of years and remind yourself &#8211; it could always be worse.

Brad Treliving's 2024 offseason was ~better~. It wasn't the groundbreaking offseason every fan longs for and there wasn't necessarily a "big fish" per se, but if you compare it to last season, where the only player he gave term to was a 36-year-old Ryan Reaves, and had to pivot to John Klingberg to fill a role on the second pairing after losing out on Matt Dumba, he certainly did better this time around.

Although they lost Tyler Bertuzzi, one of last year's aforementioned one-year deals, to the Chicago Blackhawks, they were able to retain Max Domi at an affordable price for four years and significantly improved their defence. Chris Tanev, age and injury concerns aside, is easily the best partner Morgan Rielly has ever had (assuming the two play together) and Oliver Ekman-Larsson saw a nice bounce-back en route to a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers. There's also the still up-in-the-air Jani Hakanpaa situation, which feels like it will be a bonus if that deal ends up going through. They also improved their situation between the pipes, giving Joseph Woll a nod of confidence with a new three-year contract and replacing Ilya Samsonov with another Cup winner in Anthony Stolarz. In the end, they replaced T.J. Brodie, Ilya Lyubushkin, and Joel Edmundson with Tanev, Ekman-Larsson, and Hakanpaa if that signing ever becomes official. On paper, that is objectively better than what they went into last season with.

Where they didn't improve, on the other hand, was up front. In fact, they got worse there if anything. They didn't sign a single NHL forward in free agency, outside of extending a professional tryout (PTO) to a third member of the Cup-winning Panthers roster in Steven Lorentz. On the other hand, the only player they lost in that regard was Bertuzzi, but still - that's 43 points out the door.

So, what does that leave Toronto with on the left side up front? They've currently got Matthew Knies and Bobby McMann staring down the barrel of their sophomore years, an unsigned and apparently unhappy Nick Robertson, and a variety of forwards who can play any forward position including Calle Jarnkrok, Connor Dewar, and Pontus Holmberg. There's also a budding belief that they're going to give 2023 first-round pick Easton Cowan a legitimate chance to make the roster, and then there are Marlies bubble players such as Alex Steeves looking to make the roster for once and for all. There's admittedly not a lot of pedigree there, but when your two best wingers are on the right side, perhaps that's to be expected.

With no Bertuzzi and a lot of question marks on the left side, your first instinct might be to think that the Leafs dropped the ball by not adding anybody up the left side, and while they will certainly need an upgrade by the time the trade deadline rolls around, they're actually set up much better on the left side than they have been in recent years. I would give last season's LW depth the edge over this year's just because of Bertuzzi, but beyond that, people often forget just how awful their depth was in the years prior to that.

In 2022-23, Michael Bunting was their top option up the left side. You can do a lot worse than Bunting, who was coming off of a breakout season that saw him record 63 points in 82 games the year prior, but his production fell in the last year of his deal with only 47 points. Behind him, if you recall, they had a gaping hole on the left side and started the season with Denis Malgin skating on the left side in the top six. Yes, that Denis Malgin. The one who former general manager Kyle Dubas acquired in exchange for a then-Marlies-ridden Mason Marchment, who has since gone on to carve out a pretty solid career. It's not his fault the old GM overvalued him and undervalued Marchment, but still, starting him in the top six was a plan bound to fail from the start, and the experiment only made it 23 games (with four points in those games) before he was traded to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Dryden Hunt. After that was Pierre Engvall, who was traded to the New York Islanders at the deadline, and Zach Aston-Reese, a fine fourth-line forward who more or less lost his job when Knies joined the team for the playoff run.

In 2021-22, they had the benefit of Bunting's breakout season working in their favour, but let's not forget who started the season skating alongside Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner - the man that Don Cherry once vouched for the Leafs to draft instead of William Nylander, good ol' Orangeville boy Nick Ritchie. From the moment Ritchie joined the Leafs, it just wasn't a match meant to be. He was a significant step slower than anyone else on the team and had trouble keeping up with the line he was on, and he was traded to the Arizona Coyotes in a deal for Ilya Lyubushkin after managing only two goals and nine points in 33 games. They did have the benefit of a 51-point breakout season from Alex Kerfoot, but he was used all around the lineup rather than strictly on the left side.

Just for fun, let's take things back one more year to the COVID-stricken 2021 season. This was the last season they had Zach Hyman in the blue and white (and not the 54-goal-scoring Zach Hyman either). They started the season with Jimmy Vesey skating alongside Matthews and Marner on the top line, but with only five goals and seven points in 30 games, he was eventually waived by the team and claimed by the Vancouver Canucks, and not before he was called "very vanilla" by then-head coach Sheldon Keefe, conveniently captured on camera and broadcast to the world on the Leafs' "All or Nothing" Amazon Prime documentary. Speaking of that documentary, let's not forget about how they did an entire segment on how the Leafs "rebuilt" former third-overall pick Alex Galchenyuk, who was on his sixth NHL team at that point and finished the season with 12 points in 26 games. He was regularly skating on the second line with John Tavares and William Nylander at that point, and then Nick Foligno in Tavares' spot after the latter suffered a gruesome concussion in Game 1 of the first round.

The point I'm trying to reach here is that while it might not be an optimal situation, you can do a lot worse than what the Leafs currently have on the left side. Knies has an extra year of experience under his belt and certainly won't max out as a 35-point player, and you could make the same argument for McMann, who scored 15 goals en route to 24 points in 56 games in his late-blooming rookie season at age 27. Sure, the Leafs probably won't want him on the second line by the time playoffs roll around, but he didn't look out of place by any means and if nothing else, proved that he can hang there in a pinch.

https://twitter.com/MapleLeafs/status/1785489859668279523

Then there's Robertson, who seems hellbent on getting out of Toronto despite having a golden opportunity in front of him to build his value back up and become a legitimate contributor under a new head coach. Whether or not he decides to sign is going to drastically shape the outlook of the forward group this season, but having him under contract and in a top-six role would be a pleasant surprise at this point. If he doesn't sign, there have been rumours circulating about the Leafs <a href="https://theleafsnation.com/news/maple-leafs-among-teams-interested-in-signing-max-pacioretty">being interested in</a> veteran forward Max Pacioretty. In his own words, he wasn't himself last season and battled injuries for much of the season, and if he manages to stay healthy, could contribute 15-20 goals.

Either way, if the Leafs' lack of star power on the left side this season ever bothers you, I implore you to take a look into the past couple of years and remind yourself - it could always be worse.

Somehow, the Leafs’ depth at left wing is better than it’s been in recent years

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