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With several key injuries and one 10 game suspension suffered so far this year, the Leafs have yet to really ice a full roster despite only being 15 games into the season.
That said, these “misfortunes” which the team has suffered through have provided the Leafs brass and coaching staff with the opportunities to see firsthand just how deep this team is.
To start the season off, Toronto was without newly acquired David Clarkson in the lineup for ten games due to a suspension handed out to the forward for jumping the boards and joining a fight. Shortly following the announcement of the suspension, many felt that the Leafs would struggle to win many games without the agitator in the lineup, in addition to missing forwards Nikolai Kulemin and Frazer McLaren, and defenseman Mark Fraser.
As a result, questions being tossed around with respect to these key players going down were -
Who’ll fill the void of leadership and grit? And how, given the salary-cap quandary, will the Leafs pay for the stand-ins?
Well, despite the feeling that the Leafs may get off to a slow start without said players, the team went 7-3 during their first ten games played – not bad, if you ask me. Since the return of Clarkson, Toronto has experienced even more injuries with a few close calls to Joffrey Lupul, and most recently Tyler Bozak and Dave Bolland both being placed on the injured reserved. Chaos once again for the Buds…right?
I suppose the biggest difference between losing guys like Clarkson, Kulemin et al. was that their minutes could essentially be replaced by 3rd and 4th liners or even players from the Marlies in the interim. However, when discussing the absence of Bozak and Bolland, things start to get a little tricky not only with respect to the number of minutes which they play, but the amount of face-offs they take, too.
Despite the above mentioned, the Toronto Maple Leafs are not panicking. Their current answer to this particular dilemma will be to try James van Riemsdyk out at center. Having played on the wing during his entire NHL career to date, the forward has actually played down the middle prior to turning pro. While he has only taken 65 face-offs at the NHL level, with the five days off I can only imagine that the coaching staff and JVR will be working solely on that part of his new responsibility.
“I didn’t notice a difference that much,” van Riemsdyk said. “It didn’t change my approach. Whatever they need me to do, I’m happy to do and help this team win games.
“It’s a little different, I think a lot of it is about timing, and being in the right spots at the right time so you don’t lose your speed. But I’m just looking to play wherever they want me to — centre, wing, defence, I’m happy to do it.”
As mentioned, I feel that the challenge which the team currently holds is one that will help them out in the long run. Having a strong understanding of how deep your team is will be detrimental to its future successes, especially come playoffs. Without key players in the lineup early in the year, Toronto has had the chance to experiment with new players in new positions which, as a result, allowed them to focus on the key fundamentals of the game.
“We think it’s our opportunity now to get back to the basics you need to apply in games to have success,” coach Randy Carlyle said.
“When you have players like (Bolland and Bozak) go down, it puts stress on everyone. It puts stress on the players to make up the minutes those two players normally take up. But everyone deals with injuries, and we’re going through our share of them right now.”
While having a full roster all year round is certainly a nice thing to have, being challenged with key injuries and fighting through them, in this writer’s opinion, is a true testament to how strong or deep a team truly is.
The next month or so of hockey should be very important for this group as they rely on new players like JVR, for instance, to step up and be leaders. Situations like these should certainly help with team building and allow the Leafs brass to see firsthand what kind of depth is held within their organization.
Moving forward, the important aspects of the games played for the club will continue to be their specialty teams, defensive game(shots blocked/hits), and goal-tending. Currently one of the teams who give up the most amount of shots against, Toronto will need to work on reducing the amount of shots that get through to their netminders.
While they have received nothing but top notch goal-tending to date, the team simply can't start relying too heavily on Jon Bernier and or James Reimer to steal games. Having confidence in your goaltenders is one thing, but giving up on plays defensively because you hope that your tender will bail you out is another. Shots against need to come down, it’s as simple as that.
Furthermore, without their face-off leaders the Leafs will likely have fewer chances with respect to puck possession. That said, their number of turnovers will be very important during this stretch and Carlyle will need second and even third efforts from his players on a nightly basis. Directly excusing their sloppy possession play and numbers with their goals scored will only last for so long. You simply can’t expect to win too many games while coughing up the puck and allowing 35+ shots on net – the goalies will eventually start to be worn down.
Last, and most certainly not least, Toronto will need to tighten up their defense and keep things simple. One of their biggest problems for years has been their defensive play and that aspect of the game continues to struggle at times when it comes to covering assignments and moving the puck up the ice effectively. With no current key injuries to the defensemen at this point (knocks on wood), Toronto should have the ability to rotate a few guys like Jake Gardiner, JM Liles and eventually Mark Fraser in and out of the lineup as an attempt to try and limit their defensive lapses.
That said, for those who like to run the numbers, Toronto has found success in their defensive play by limiting their opponents to shots from outside the perimeter. In fact, their opponents have only managed to take 25% of their shots on goal from in close, and the other 75% from 20 feet out. This was very apparent when you looked back at the raw numbers with respect to shot blocking; however the team who once led the league in this stat has fallen to 13th overall. They will need to continue to place a lot of emphasis on their defensive stats if they are to continue to find success.
If for any reason the Leafs do begin to struggle without their key centermen, their options are somewhat limited. Their likely candidate with respect to being called up to fill the void down the middle will be 21 year old Greg McKegg who has three goals and one assist so far with the Marlies. If the Leafs are not overly confident with that option, they may have no choice but to look toward a trade option which, according to Darren Dreger, would not be a “stop gap” type player.
A few names which have surfaced of late have been Scott Gomez, Steve Ott, and Sam Gagner. While I feel these players could temporarily help the team out during their injury plagued stretches, they should really only be viewed as a last resort given the team's current cap situation.
To conclude, while it appears that the Toronto Maple Leafs are in for some troubling times over the next month or so after suffering more injuries, I feel with the right coaching and team effort that they should be able to battle through this challenge as they did to start off the year.
With Nazem Kadri looking to step up his game, JVR up to the challenge of playing first line center, and a few young rookies in the Marlies awaiting their chance to shine at the NHL level, Toronto Maple Leafs brass and fans alike will have a good chance to see just how deep their team really is.
What do you guys feel the Leafs should do?
That’s all for this week folks, thanks for reading!
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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