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Leafs Chats is a roundtable discussion between Alec Brownscombe, Anthony Petrielli and Declan Kerin — and occasionally a special guest — that will feature throughout the season at Maple Leafs Hot Stove.


Anthony Petrielli (AP): 28 games into the season, how are you guys feeling?

Alec Brownscombe (AB): About how I expected. The Leafs are an exciting team that finds ways to lose so far. That’s good enough for this year. I’m curious to see if they can put together a hot streak at some point and keep things interesting, though. As frustrating as some of the dropped points have been, they’ve avoided the type of slump that would drop them out of playoff contention altogether. They’ve got balanced scoring over three lines and they’ve got a goaltender in Frederik Andersen who has played a better 18-game segment than you ever could’ve fathomed given his first five. It could come together for a hot streak at some point. Will it be enough to make the playoffs? Pretty unlikely. Would it be nice if they could play a couple of semi-meaningful games in March? Absolutely. That’d be the icing on the cake for me in addition to the individual play of the rookies.

Declan Kerin (DK): Yeah, I feel the same. This is also about where I expected the Leafs to be, the lost points in the blown third-period leads, no shootout wins, and the lack of competent backup goaltending aside. Projecting the rookies was hard, but when you look at their sudden talent at center, you see that the potential for some offensive explosiveness was there from the beginning. That’d they’d be highly entertaining and a bit reckless was to be expected with the number of skilled rookies in the lineup.

AP: Oh man, how hard was it projecting their rookies this summer? Everyone kept asking, already wanting answers on how good these guys are. There were articles and magazines ranking the Leafs’ prospects, and people were getting into full-on arguments on Twitter about their order. I was just trying to figure out who was going to make the team. Remember when we weren’t 100% sure Marner was going to play 82 this year?

AB: One preseason game was all I needed to see, as odd as that sounds. Marner was clearly stronger, was no longer just quick but legitimately fast, and far more confident than in his first camp. Even then, I never would’ve predicted he would be as good as he’s been. The inevitable scoring “slump” has now arrived and it’s an important thing for him to figure out how to get through. He’s deferred a little more to linemates lately to my eye and we’ve seen fewer of the tantalizing carries, which shows he’s perhaps battling his first bout of reduced confidence. The old adage about it only being concerning if he’s not getting chances applies here. He’s getting plenty but just needs to bear down.

DK: I think part of the difficulty with the projections was that it was rookies playing with rookies and not a lot of veterans in the lineup. Using NHLe and other methods to try and arrive at a number for 6-7-8 rookies — especially when they’re on the same line together — is a crapshoot, but it’s been extremely impressive what the ‘big three’ rookies have done, to go along with Brown playing tough minutes alongside Kadri and Soshnikov playing alongside him at times, too. To say nothing of 25-year-old rookie Nikita Zaitsev’s play on the top pairing alongside Morgan Rielly.

AP: That was the other thing. We were also sitting there all summer thinking, “are they actually going to have like six or seven rookies?” And here we are. I was also trying to use Jack Eichel as a Matthews benchmark because they basically produced the same for the USNDP (Matthews had three more points at the same age in the same amount of games). Then I went to that Team North America vs. Sweden game in the World Cup and was like, “yeah, Eichel is pretty damn good, but Matthews is going to be better.”

AB: Does it suggest that Mike Babcock is capable of adapting or that the Leafs rookie crop is just that good? I guess the right answer is both. Rookies could hardly get a sniff in Detroit. This was uncharted territory. I didn’t think we’d see seven. I was expecting there to be a moment where I got upset about Brown or Carrick getting the shaft. Basically, they gave Milan Michalek the five games to honour the commitment Lou gave to him in order to get him to waive his no-trade clause, then they made the sensible change, bringing up Soshnikov once healthy, promoting Brown into the top nine, and going with the kids.  It’s been difficult for me to get up in arms about the treatment of a Corrado or Holland knowing that the Leafs priorities are in the right place this season.

DK: Before the season, we had Nylander at 55 points and Matthews at 65. They’re projecting around there right now, but maybe we were a little low on Matthews. I didn’t think he’d be this good so soon. The biggest surprise is Marner. We said 40-45 points and we didn’t think he’d be this good this soon, either. He’s tracking for ~60pts right now and that’s incredible. I knew he’d be amazing down the road in a year or two, but he’s pretty amazing right now. Did you think the same?

AP: I was honestly so torn on Marner. I knew Kadri would get the tough matchups — I wrote about it in the summer. Obviously, I figured Matthews would get another C spot, and Bozak the other in the top nine. I thought it would take Matthews some time to go up against top six lines defensively which meant, by default, it would be Bozak doing so. We know he can’t play defense. It was tough for me to figure out how Marner was going to fit into that kind of structure. I mean, he was bad the year before in preseason. Really small, really light, he had about zero confidence, and his skating honestly didn’t look that great the first year. Then he goes to the O and just shreds the league on the best junior line in the country. They are going out and scoring men’s league goals — tick, tack, toe, empty net, saucing pucks for no reason. It was a joke. How is that all going to translate? How is that all going to come together? Basically, 40-45 points is a safe bet in that scenario.

DK: I know he’s divisive and has many holes in his game, but when Bozak started to figure out how to play with Marner they can really feed well off each other. JVR, too. For all of his shortcomings defensively, Bozak is modular and seems to serve the skill on the line offensively. He did the same with Kessel. It’s not pretty and at times, unconventional, but he’s trending for a career season alongside JVR and Marner right now. He’s sneaky — I think that’s the word I’m looking for. As soon as he stopped trying to play like Marner with wayward behind-the-back passes, and passes between his legs from the half-wall into the middle of the neutral zone, they started clicking. You know what I’m trying to say?

AP: Yeah, Bozak is crafty. He’s a reasonable point producer and kind of is what he is at this point; I don’t have much issue with the guy, to be honest. But he is bad defensively, and it alters the makeup of your team because you can’t have a 1C or 2C that can’t play defense going head-to-head. But as Kadri and Matthews handle those match-ups, and handle them well, leaving Bozak to snag o-zone faceoffs, PP time, and good offensive linemates, he’s going to do pretty well. 

DK: We keep going back to his defensive issues: he has hardly had a knuckle wrap from Babcock and has been discernibly worse defensively than both Nylander and Marner, both of whom had tours of duty on the fourth line. Is it a case of him wanting to get ahead of bad habits developing with the two kids or is he getting the same treatment as the rest of the veterans last year, just in a more discreet manner? Or both? It was pretty apparent to most observers that they were inflating Dion’s possession stats by playing him with Gardiner and increasing his production by giving him all the PP time in the world. Maybe they’re just doing the same thing with Bozak, but doing a better job of not being so blatant about it. He could be a nice piece for the right team, in the right scenario.

AB: Yeah, the Leafs have been validated in hanging onto Bozak for as long as they have. If they listened to fans about when to strike on his peak value, he would’ve been gone a long time ago for a mid-round pick and a C-level prospect. He’s now proven his offensive abilities — which are sneaky as you guys say — away from Kessel and eliminated that question mark. The Leafs never had the center depth (to put it mildly) just to move him away to the highest bidder if it was for a mediocre return, anyway.

I think he might have more value than many people think on the trade market as a right-handed C who can reliably produce about .55 PPG and is among the better faceoff men in the league. His contract is fairly reasonable and the term is palatable. When is the right time to strike? As Dec says, in some respects it has the same kind of vibe as the Dion pump and dump. Babcock has found the right role with him, although that’s the goal with all players, not just the ones you’re trying to trade.  

AP: Hmm, never thought of that to be honest. I mean they are somewhat ready for it in terms of talent. Shift Nylander over to C and run Matthews-Kadri-Nylander. They’d still lack a 4C and would have no real experience down the middle to speak of. If Ben Smith is the C, I basically imagine Babcock putting him out for every faceoff ever, which would be a nightmare. They are building for the future and can probably get some value for Bozak. But more than picks? I don’t know. He’s a weird player to compare to the market. I’m also curious if he’s going to stay healthy — he has missed lengthy time in three of his six full seasons. The team as a whole has been relatively healthy so far this year. Is that the sports science department?

DK: You can only guess without access to any info. Is it youth? They’re also not a terribly physical team — does that play into it? Probably a combination of all of the above, but last year, they were near the league lead in games lost to injury. Now, some of that was due to possibly shutting players down early and sticking to the program of trying to get the best possible odds of finishing last, but it’s diametrically opposed this year.

AP: I don’t know guys, I always hate to say it because it’s the Leafs, but things are actually looking up. I mean, I enjoyed their structure and all that last season, but that team was terrible and boring to watch. You can see it this year — these guys are going to be good and for a long time. It’s probably not going to happen this season, but this is exciting.

AB: I’m most curious to see how soon Babcock can get such a young team playing the tight defensive hockey he’s known for. He’s got the training wheels on defensively. He doesn’t view the Leafs as a heavy team (correctly) or a team that has a good blue line group or enough experience in general, so he’s got them swarming and outnumbering opponents in the defensive zone. I wonder how much of that contributes to their inability to hold a lead and tendency to sit back. That’s still a system that takes time to get a handle on. The wingers — the Leafs have five that are rookies — in particular have to cover more ice and take on more responsibility than they’re used to when they’re asked to collapse low to help and then still cut off the top of the zone.

Can they start to figure this system out before significant help arrives on the backend? It’s not easy to find the piece they’re looking for on defence. Say they end up with a great pick this year and grab a really promising defenceman… It’s still going to be years before he’s ready to make a true impact and move the needle for them on the blue line. It’s probably going to have to be done through a trade.

Agreed that it’s very exciting in the big picture. Still have to pinch yourself watching Auston Matthews on a game-to-game basis. Merry Christmas to us all.

DK: l’m of the same mind. I’ve called them the millennium falcon and it seems that’s what they are right now. Sometimes they break down, and sometimes everything clicks and they look unstoppable against the great teams in the league. It’s exciting hockey to watch, and like Alec says, it will be interesting to see if they return to a Babcock-style system with better structure, less running around in the defensive zone, fewer long bombs and more dependable, consistent breakouts. They’re checking off a lot of the major components contenders need and they’re perhaps only 2-3 pieces plus development time for the kids away from being, at the very least, a powerhouse in the East. Merry Christmas.

AP: Somedays, I’m still not even sure Matthews is a Leaf. That it’s real. But it is. Happy Holidays everyone. Let’s chat again soon boys.