Anthony Petrielli joined The FAN Morning Show to discuss his Maple Leafs Offseason Review series currently underway on MLHS.
On GM John Chayka’s first offseason at the helm:
They haven’t played a game yet, so it’s still reserved. But for someone who was out of the league for half a decade, the original concerns were: How will he be able to acclimate himself back into it? Does he still have connections and networks? How is it going to play out?
To his credit, he has been able to remodel the overall front office to his liking. I think some level of recognition is deserved for that. He didn’t sit on his hands, which I appreciate. He could’ve sat there and said, “Let me take a year to evaluate everyone.” He didn’t need a year to evaluate everyone. They’ve all been there for a very long time. The season was what it was last year — poor through and through.
Good for him, at least, for not waiting on it and taking action. Whether he has hired the right people remains to be seen, but I can at least appreciate that he just ripped the Band-Aid off, put his own people in place, and went about it at mass scale.
On the potential impact of Jim Hiller behind the bench:
It could be pretty significant.
It honestly has less to do with Jim Hiller and more to do with what just happened last season with Craig Berube. It was a poorly coached team through and through, from deployment to usage to the structure they played with.
Down the stretch, the team effectively quit on the season. They mailed it in.
Matthews is the big one. They’ve added a bunch of checkers, pluggers, and some players who would think will take on some tougher minutes to hopefully free up Matthews, who, among centers, played the toughest minutes in the league last year. He did it with Max Domi as his most common winger. It didn’t make sense across the board. You can play him with Domi, but then they should be heavy offensive minutes, not playing Nick Suzuki or Brayden Point shift in and shift out.
That alone could build a pretty big impact, and then you hope to add in just baseline levels of structure where you are not dumping the puck in all night or going off the glass and out all night.
I don’t think Hiller has to be great. I think Hiller just has to be normal, and that alone could be pretty significant.
On Morgan Rielly remaining on the roster as of now:
It is an interesting one. Is whatever they could’ve gotten similar to what Darnell Nurse got Edmonton, which wasn’t much, but they cleared his entire contract? Or were the Leafs going to need to attach an asset to it or eat some money?
I wouldn’t have eaten money on him or attached picks — or whatever else — to get rid of him. But if it was just about clearing the money and using it elsewhere, I probably would’ve gone in that direction.
It felt like it was time pretty much the entire season last year. Last offseason, he had some sort of chat with management, and he came out in the first game and was kind of flying around out there. After that, it just went back to whatever it was.
It was just a tough year for everyone — he wasn’t alone — but it just kind of felt like it was time for the longest-serving Leaf.
I get it that they don’t want to just give him away entirely, but I would’ve probably been willing just to part with him to clear the money.
Now, if he is here, it is kind of a strange fit.
The defense is still pretty old. I thought [Chayka] would clear out one of the veterans for something, even if it wasn’t Rielly — maybe OEL coming off a productive year. The average age of their defense is just under 32 with the top six. They have one guy under 30: Emil Andrae, who is going to probably enter as the sixth D. They’re banking on a very veteran-heavy group.
It was a weird defense market. It wasn’t like a bunch of defensemen got traded who the Leafs had the assets for or should’ve made the equivalent move. They weren’t offering first overall for Bowen Byram. Who did the Leafs have to offer for Sean Durzi that was similar to Vincent Trocheck?
On the Leafs going as Matthew goes, at the end of the day:
They have taken some swings. They added Raddysh, and Bobrovsky qualifies as one. At the end of the day, it is still built around Auston Matthews. They hired a coach he likes, is familiar with, and has had success with. They’ve added a bunch of checkers to open it up for him a little bit. There is a power-play guy beside him who is a better fit.
Every team in the league builds around their star players — it is nothing new — but at the end of the day, Matthews has to still drive the bus. And that is a big question at this point. He hasn’t looked good for two years, basically. I know the numbers looked okay in the year they won the division, but if everyone was honest with themselves, I think it was the 100-point, contract-year Mitch Marner who drove the line more than Matthews.
It is a big year for him. Just in the division alone last year, Nick Suzuki was clearly better. Tim Stutzle was clearly better. Tage Thompson was probably better, even though he bounces a little bit between center and wing. I mean, was Dylan Larkin better last year? Maybe. That can’t happen. They won’t go anywhere. Tampa got away with Brayden Point having a mediocre year — because Nikita Kucherov had 140 points — but it is just not going to work.
They’ve made a bunch of changes, but among the top-level ones, is Darren Raddysh going to come in and lead the defense? How good will McKenna be as an 18-year-old?
Otherwise, yes, it is the same top guys.
