Toronto enters the season with the promise of a great staff, one able to a top-three end in its division. However, naturally, the Maple Leafs usually are not with out query marks. Listed below are 5 questions as they embark on the season:
When will Auston Matthews be prepared?
Matthews underwent wrist surgical procedure Aug. 13 and didn't take part in any of the staff’s six pre-season video games. Whereas Matthews seemed spectacular in coaching camp exercises — each on his personal and when he rejoined the staff — he's going to get a minimum of the primary couple of video games to proceed to heal. It could be a case of the Leafs and Matthews being cautious but it surely’s powerful to argue the choice. Toronto wants the defending Rocket Richard Trophy winner to be wonderful all season lengthy, not simply the primary two video games.
Is Nick Ritchie the fitting ahead to play with Matthews and Mitch Marner?
Ritchie guarantees to be a giant physique with a mixture of skating, tenacity, bodily play and offence to enrich the staff’s high two gamers. However Ritchie needs to be all these issues; a first-line function will include comparisons to Zach Hyman, now in Edmonton. Ritchie is larger and a greater skater than Hyman and needs to be a great match. The Leafs might battle if he isn’t, particularly with Ilya Mikheyev, one other chance to play with Marner and Matthews, anticipated to overlook eight weeks with a thumb harm.
Will two heads be higher than one within the Leafs’ aim?
Jack Campbell and Petr Mrázek are being {asked} to interchange the minutes Frederik Andersen gave the staff in his first 4 seasons in Toronto. It’s unlikely Andersen’s ghost will hang-out both goalie — Cambell had taken over the starter’s function by the tip of final season, as a consequence of Andersen’s accidents and ineffectiveness in his fifth season — but it surely stays to be seen if both Campbell or Mrázek is usually a bona fide No. 1, particularly come playoff time. Proper now, it seems the 2 will share the load, with Campbell having the within observe to more taking part in time.
Can the Leafs benefit from the person benefit once more?
The Leafs had one of the best energy play within the NHL into March, once they have been scoring on 31.7 per cent of their possibilities. After which the objectives dried up. The Leafs have been sixteenth by the tip of the common season, then had the third-worst success price of the 16 playoff groups, at 13.0 per cent. So there have been modifications. The membership employed assistant coach Spencer Carbery, a former AHL coach of the 12 months, and he'll work with Manny Malhotra on the ability play. A 12 months in the past, the Leafs tried making a low-post presence on its two models with gamers like Joe Thornton and Wayne Simmonds. They look like going with the all-star strategy on the highest unit this season and revising among the duties, together with making a bumper function for Marner that ought to permit him to create more alternatives.
The place will the secondary scoring come from?
Toronto GM Kyle Dubas signed a bunch of gamers to assist fill out bottom-six roles this season and, hopefully, contribute some offence. There was a giant drop-off final season after Marner and Matthews on the primary line and John Tavares and William Nylander on the second. Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe was by no means totally pleased with the contributions of his third and fourth traces, and groups like Tampa Bay confirmed the significance of secondary scoring within the playoffs.
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