I don't know that I agree with that.
This team doesn't have a skill problem, at times it has an attitude, accountability, and character problem. I've long stated that the best teams in the league have the right combination of skilled talent and character guys that play the system well. On nights when Matthews, Marner and Tavares just seem to be going through the motions, if you have 3 or 4 guys like Clifford on the team between your forward group and your defense core, you play them a few extra minutes and hope they can give you some energy to wake the boys up.
Boston steals Toronto's soul every year not only because they have talent like the "perfection" line, but because they have a foundation of blue collar, lunch pale types, that show up every night. Their contribution is not always seen on the scoreboard, but their effort level can keep you in games until your elite players can turn it around.
Boston barely scrapes by the Leafs every year. They have come within one game of losing both years, and if it was not for guys like Gardiner folding up like a cheap suit (I mean he was a -8 over the two Game 7 games, and generally had more crap games than good games in the playoffs) or Kadri getting suspended BOTH times. It really kills matchups when one of your top 4 defensemen is an absolute liability and one of your matchup centers is on the sidelines for most of both series. Then it does not help when our top guys struggled some games too. Our top guys need to be top guys all of the time, not just half the time.
A guy like Clifford is not the difference maker, just like Boston's 4th liners are not the reason why they win outside of what they bring to the PK. Everyone shows up every night, not just their energy guys. That's what our problem is. We can piss around with adding guys like Clifford but ultimately it is up to Matthews/Marner/Tavares/Nylander/Rielly/Andersen/etc. to show up every night to help us win. And when it comes to secondary guys, it should be guys like Kerfoot, Kapanen, Hyman, Mikheyev, etc. who can play smart, hard-working hockey, provide secondary offense, and be strong in their own end... Like they've been doing much of the year. That's what guys like DeBrusk and Coyle do for Boston. A guy like Clifford, like the rest of our 4th line, will probably only play like 8 minutes a night and it will likely not be a very eventful 8 minutes of hockey either, and it is not like any of them provide any kind of value to the PK either.
So as I have been saying for a long time, these perceived issues are far down the list of real issues with this team. Clifford is not a guy who really has a spot with this team next year, especially when it comes to his projected contract and the extra round we'd have to give up to keep him. Engvall, Spezza, Barabanov, Korshkov, Robertson, Brooks already here, and there are UFA's out there that could either be a Marlie contributor or provide very similar things to Clifford for a far cheaper price. Korshkov already mostly does...