After the 2021 NHL Draft, free agency and other offseason moves, what do the Toronto Maple Leafs still need?
Most NHL Analysts agreed the Leafs needed to add a little more grit to their lineup last season as they were perceived to be a pretty soft team. GM Kyle Dubas partially addressed this by adding forward Nick Ritchie.
Mike Zeisberger of NHL.com reports the Maple Leafs need more forward depth after the departures of Zach Hyman, Joe Thornton, Nick Foligno and Alex Galchenyuk.
Zeisberger went on to say, who will join Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander in the top six? Toronto is top-heavy up front and needs to have some of its supporting cast supply secondary scoring.Â
As the Leafs currently stand, they do not have any salary cap space to make a move and will likely have to wait until the 2022 NHL trade deadline to find some secondary scoring or more grit players.
Toronto Maple Leafs projected lineup
Forwards
Nick Ritchie — Auston Matthews — Mitchell Marner
Alexander Kerfoot — John Tavares — William Nylander
Michael Bunting — David Kampf —Â Ilya Mikheyev
Wayne Simmonds — Jason Spezza — Nicholas Robertson
Defence
Morgan Rielly — TJ Brodie
Jake Muzzin — Justin Holl
Rasmus Sandin —Â Travis Dermott
Goalies
Jack Campbell
Petr Mrazek
Want to see how the Toronto Maple Leafs will do this coming season? View our NHL Predictions 2021-22.
Holy shit who are these analysts?? Did they watch last postseasons collapse? It wasn’t a lack of grit it was that our 2 star players choked and couldn’t score more than 1 goal combined.