Toronto Maple Leafs final roster
On Monday the Toronto Maple Leafs made another seven cuts to their line-up and now only have two cuts to make in order to be down to the required 23-man roster to start the season. Nevertheless, with the majority of the roster announced Leafs fans have already
begun to assess the club’s possibilities of making the play-offs.
The Leafs announced that they sent down young centre Nazem Kadri, Luca Caputi and Christian Hanson, as well as Jay Rosehill, Mike Zigomanis, Danny Richmond and Matt Lashoff. There were not many surprises among this group, as Kadri’s poor play throughout
the pre-season made the decision to start him in the minors an easy one for the Leafs brass. However, perhaps the most difficult decision to understand was sending down Hanson, who by all accounts had a very strong camp and certainly outplayed his competition
in John Mitchell. The decision to retain Mitchell could once again be considered a case of the veteran getting preferential treatment because of experience.
Nevertheless, with the only real roster decision to be made on the blue line, deciding between Jeff Finger and Brett Lebda as the club’s seventh defenseman, the Leafs’ line-up is pretty well set for their season opener on 6 October.
The 2010-11 version of the Leafs looks much different from the one that started just a year ago. General manager Brian Burke has shed plenty of veterans and replaced them with youth. One only has to look as far as the club’s first line of Tyler Bozak, Phil
Kessel and Kris Versteeg, none of whom are over 24 years old. However, the question is whether or not this new group has the ability to push for a play-off spot.
In order for the Leafs to make the play-offs this season they would likely have to be the most improved team in the League and coach Ron Wilson would have to receive the Jack Adams award for coach of the year. The squad finished with 74 points last season
and if we base making the play-offs on the 88 points in took for the Montreal Canadiens to qualify in 2009-10, Toronto would need to improve their point total by 14.
Needless-to-say the Leafs need to improve substantially in every statistical category next season if they hope to challenge for a play-off spot. The club finished 25th in goals-per-game, 29th in goals-against-per-game, as well as dead
last on both the power play and penalty kill.
The most glaring of these statistics in the lack of proficiency on special-teams, as the League has slowly become more power play driven since the lockout. If the Leafs are not able to remedy this type of pour showing on the man-advantage they are in for
another long season.
At the back end Toronto should have one of the best defence cores in the entire League. Boasting names such as Dion Phaneuf, Tomas Kaberle, Francois Beauchemin and Luke Schenn this club no longer has any excuses for allowing an average of 3.21 goals-per-game.
In addition, the club received the worst goaltending in the NHL last season, which should change with the addition of J-S Giguere.
Nevertheless, the club faces its biggest issues up front. Certainly the first line looked extremely potent in pre-season and at times the second line looked to promising. However, the club is counting on players such as Clarke MacArthur and Mikhail Grabovski
to be second line contributors, something they have been unable to do throughout entire careers.
The Maple Leafs are a brand new team in 2010-11 and are moving in the right direction. However, the roster Burke and Wilson have decided to go with this season is not one that will be able to challenge for a play-off spot. The club could be a contender down
the road, but at this point do not possess the talent to compete with a vastly improved Eastern Conference.
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