The Toronto Maple Leafs and Brandon Duhaime have come to terms on a three-year, $2.6 million AAV contract.
Duhaime is another player we profiled in our free agent series:
Duhaime can play right wing, and that speed makes him a good fit beside slower wingers like Lorentz or Joshua on a checking line. Ideally, you want some pace alongside those players. He is also a reasonable penalty killer.
He uses his speed to get in on the forecheck, where he’s physical — finishing second on Washington in hits in each of the last two seasons. Last season, he also had eight fights, which was not just a contract-year spike; he had 10 the year before and seven the year prior.
He is a simple, meat-and-potatoes checker, but the Leafs were one of the worst defensive teams in the league last season and lacked that type of player. Duhaime knows his role: check hard, be physical, and bring energy.
AFP Projection: 2 x $1.87M
I profiled Duhaime because I like his speed, physicality, and the fact that he’s a proper checking winger. The Leafs had far too many forwards who struggled on half the ice last season, and it was one of the main reasons they were one of the worst defensive teams in the league.
It is actually hard to overstate just how poor this team was defensively, and that is clearly an area the Leafs are trying to improve. They ranked near the bottom of the league in essentially every major defensive category — slot shots against, goals against, rush defense, you name it.
Like Sissons and Blueger, Duhaime gives them another quality defensive player.
The question will be whether the mix has gone too far. It is one thing to be good defensively, but ideally, you spend less time defending altogether because you are good offensively. The only offensive forward addition at this point has been Jack Roslovic, who can score at a decent clip but doesn’t necessarily drive play.
As we noted after the Blueger signing, this looks like a pure top-six/bottom-six model right now, barring some trades. The bottom six features some combination of Duhaime, Blueger, Sissons, Joshua, and Lorentz. There are some good penalty killers and checkers in that group, but no matter how you slice it, there isn’t much offense.
Duhaime, in particular, will at least add legitimate speed and physicality to that group, plus he is a willing fighter. He’s not exactly the same as the others — he brings a slightly different dimension — but the general profile is similar: check, kill penalties, and grind along the walls.
Perhaps that means a trade is coming to clear out an incumbent, or perhaps they simply view a player like Lorentz as the 13th forward. Either way, it’s fair to question the sheer number of checking forwards they are collecting. All of the top teams in the league have legitimate scoring threats on their third line.
There’s actually no real criticism of any of these individual players in a vacuum (other than the AAV on Sissons). The scrutiny is more about the collective, with this group of players taking up half of the forward corps.
If Auston Matthews scores 60-plus goals again and Gavin McKenna steps into the league and produces at a high level immediately, it’s at least workable during the regular season. But that’s asking a lot.
We should also note that, with Duhaime, the Leafs have now added a third player with legitimate speed, joining Roslovic and Sissons. The Leafs played slowly last season, and while I think their style made them look even slower than they actually were, you can never have enough speed. The Leafs have legitimately added that on the first day of free agency.
They have also added legitimate checkers to improve defensively while bringing in three players who provide center options, even if you probably don’t want any of them serving as your full-time third-line center.
This has been a busy day, as part of an already busy offseason. It’s safe to say the Leafs are going to look significantly different next season.
