Which winger is he supposed to beat out for a scoring role? Marleau? JVR? Nylander or Marner? Every other winger on the team kills penalties and gets hard minutes.
He's obviously not better than Marleau, JVR, Nylander, or Marner.
He's better than Hyman, Komarov, and Martin. Probably on a similar level to Brown, Kapanen, and Johnsson right now (though I think Johnsson will be much better in another year or two).
I'm not saying that Leivo should have for sure gotten 82 games... but he could have at least rotated with Martin in the first half of the year. Obviously I would have loved it if Hyman and Komarov were both on the 4th line and then Leivo, Kapanen, Johnsson, etc. could get a chance to play in the top 9.