Hello all,
I worked and lived (Yonge-Wellesley) in Toronto for a few months a couple of years ago and have slowly got into all of their sports. First it was Blue Jays as I was out there in the summer, last year I started watching Raptor games and now I'm getting into the Leafs. I've already bought NHL TV and watched the last 3 matches.
Sorry about all of the questions but I am starting to enjoy the sport and would like to be more knowledgable leading up to the play-offs. I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions
- Look forward to chatting to you all.
Welcome aboard, you picked a good time to join the fanbase. I'll preface this with: The Leafs are a 100 year old franchise, one of the first 6 that began the NHL that is now expanding to 31 teams. We have been in a dark period since the early 1990's when the team was good, and it's been since 1967 since we won a championship
We now have what is arguably the best farm system in the history of the franchise, a lot of young talent on the way and currently playing their rookie years
We also have had a number of incompetent management groups, and it appears that the one in place now is stellar based on their early returns. Scouting for the draft, which is probably the most important aspect (The best thing a coach can do is have good players), is doing a particularly good job from what we can tell - though many of the young players they have drafted are not yet in the lineup many are doing very well in other leagues
Depth Chart
This site usually stays relatively up to date, good for an idea of the current lines:
http://www2.dailyfaceoff.com/teams/lines/40/toronto-maple-leafs
Not necessarily indicative of who the best players are - unlike most sports, hockey is a high-exertion continuous play format so lines change frequently, so your 1st/2nd/3rd line forwards play similar amounts of time and your 1st/2nd pairing defensemen play similar amounts of time (defensemen play more icetime than forwards)
The resource posted above is more accurate in tracking who plays with who rather than the order or hierarchy of the lines
Draft
The draft includes players from all over the world, they're drafted younger than the NFL - first year of eligibility is at 18 years of age and a player gets 3 years of eligibility before he has passed through the draft, at which time he can sign anywhere. More than 90% of NHL'ers are drafted, not signed as undrafted overagers (we have Bozak, Soshnikov and Zaitsev who are overage undrafted players, but that's an exception)
The expansion draft is the introduction of a brand new franchise to the league (expanding to Las Vegas, 31 teams up from 30) so they don't have a roster and get to pick players off of other teams roster to be able to ice a team (subject to contract status conditions, and teams get to protect a number of players - the team that Las Vegas ices will be very bad next year, but will draft high as a result and should rise to relevance in 6-10 years)
Prospects
Tiers:
Auston Matthews - near generational talent (could be one of top 5 players in the league, and if we're really lucky could be one of the best players of his generation), could retire as the best player that the leafs have ever had in 100 years of existence
Marner - could be a top 10 scorer, plays wing - similar to striker in soccer, very little defensive responsibility (more than a striker has though), depended on for scoring
Nylander - could be a top 10-20 scorer, playing centre which is the most important forward position
Connor Brown, Kasperi Kapanen - young scoring wingers with upside to be very good top 2 line scorers, both are ready to play now (Brown is playing)
Andrew Neilsen, Travis Dermott - young defensemen with top 4 upside, maybe top pairing upside for Neilsen (similar position to lumping sweeper+midfielder together, lots of defensive responsibility but gets involved in the offense too, it's not uncommon for a defensemen to join the rush and get to the same place on the ice that the forwards do in the offensive zone)
Other noteable prospects who could be good playes (many won't turn out): Brendan Leipsic, Jeremy Bracco, Carl Grundstrom, Yegor Korshkov, Adam Brooks, Dmytro Timashov, Andreas Johnsson, Rinat Valiev
Strengths
You're close - add James Van Riemsdyk, and Frederik Andersen (the Goalie)
Komarov was an allstar because every team sends at least one player, and our team was absolutely terrible. Komarov had a good year, but even then it was only good enough to be about the 6th best scorer on a contending team
Weaknesses
Our biggest weakness is that we're young. We have some pieces left to get rid of (probably Komarov, Bozak, Hunwick, Polak) to replace with more high-talent youth. Overall it's projecting as a very well rounded team
Play-off chances
It's looking like we have a better than 50% shot right now, which is very very good from where we were a year ago. The difference with NA leagues to European leagues is that some of them have a hard salary cap, like the NHL does, so typically players who develop into stars command bigger salaries and teams that have a bunch of young talent eventually end up losing some of them to free agency because they don't have enough cap space to sign them, then eventually their core players get old and they trade them for picks and prospects to "rebuild" the franchise's player personnel. That's the stage we're in right now, the "rebuild" stage, but it looks like we are on our way to being contenders with young players from the rebuild in Matthews, Marner, Nylander and I guess you could say that Rielly, Kadri and Gardiner will be part of it as well although they were in the organization before the "rebuild" officially started
Trades
Maybe Bozak, Komarov, Polak, Hunwick and possibly Van Riemsdyk. The first 4 are lesser role players and if they're traded its for later round draft picks or prospects, Van Riemsdyk is a front line forward that's on the bubble as to whether he's young enough to still be good when the team is. It's looking like the team is ahead of schedule so Van Riemsdyk might be staying
Media
TSN 1050 Leafs Lunch is fun to listen to....there's no shortage of Leafs coverage anywhere in our media though
Schedule
The regular season is made by the league, primarily based on the logistics of getting teams in the right place to complete a 41 home game + 41 away game schedule, while making sure that the big market teams get the prime air time...there's not many saturday nights that will pass without a Leaf game at 7pm
......
