Toronto Maple Leafs

Leafs Scoring Depth - Coming At You In Waves

A funny thing happened on the way to the Leafs sliding into the basement to look for John Tavares and Victor Hedman… they discovered they have a lot of depth.  Unfortunately this might mean the trip down to the basement takes longer than some people expect… or the rate of the drop will need to be helped by a few bricks, anchors, and anvils.

The Leafs might not have a lot of “top 6″ forward talent… but as anyone who has followed the Leafs for the past five years can accurately assert, they sure are blessed with a lot of solid third line talent.  So much so that the forward lines look a little jammed up these days, and the problem might get worse if and when Mike Van Ryn and Luke Schenn come back from injury, resulting in the addition of Ian White to the forward mix.

The Leafs top line of Nik Antropov, Matt Stajan, and Alexei Ponikarovsky is far from the top of the NHL scoring race.  When you consider the top trios of teams like the Washington Capitals, who boast Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin, and Alex Ovechkin, scoring 109 combined points; the San Jose Sharks with Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Devin Setoguchi racking up 108 points; or the Boston Bruins Phil Kessel, Marc Savard, and Milan Lucic throwing together 100 points, you begin to realize that the combined total of 84 points from the Leafs top line is pretty average - but it’s not awe inspiring considering last year after the first 3 months, and 36 games the top Leafs trio had 99 points combined (Sundin and Antropov had a combined 70 points between them).

84 points puts the Leafs top trio right around… say… the top 3 forwards on the Dallas Stars, Richards, Ribeiro, and Eriksson (80 points); the top 3 forwards on the Buffalo Sabres, Vanek, Roy, and Pominville (86 points); the top 3 on the Calgary Flames, Iginla, Langkow, Cammalleri (87 points); the top 3 on the Colorado Avalanche, Stastny, Smyth, and Hejduk (72 points - Darcy Who???); the top 3 LA Kings, Brown, Kopitar, Frolov (75 points); the top 3 Carolina Hurricanes, Whitney, Staal, and Brind’Amour (74 points)

That being said, the Leafs second line of Grabovski, Hagman, and Stempniak has a combined 60 points.  Meanwhile Washington falls off the pace a tad with Nylander, Kozlov, and Fleischmann only putting together 55 points, and San Jose loses something when they drop down to Michalek, Paveslki, and Clowe who combine for 67 points.

Boston isn’t quite at the same level when they resort to Krecji, Wheeler, and Ryder with… ok nevermind… Boston has 80 points from their second line… they’re pretty damn good.  Especially when you remember that I haven’t mentioned Bergeron, Sturm, or Kobasew yet.  The Bruins are probably in the top 3 across the board in terms of offensive depth in the NHL right now… right up there with the Detroit Red Wings and the San Jose Sharks.  I feel weird typing that.

So where was I? Oh right… the Leafs and their new found depth.  Ever since Jeremy Williams was brought in to play alongside Jason Blake and Dominic Moore, the Leafs have suddenly discovered their third line can score too.  Williams has 5 goals and 7 points in the 6 games since he was promoted from the Marlies to go along with a +6 rating.  Jason Blake has similary increased his output, registering 2 goals and 6 points as well as a +5 rating in those 6 games.  The lynchpin of the line, Dominic Moore, has not quite gotten the point output, but he is definitely the engine that makes the line go, and he is a +6 over that same stretch of 6 games, while scoring 2 goals.

Now, with the recent return to the lineup of Nik Hagman, it appears the fourth line is getting some higher level skill from the demotion of Nikolai Kulemin, who is also capable of playing a checking role quite well in an NHL uniform.  He should give John Mitchell someone with finish and speed to skate alongside at the lower end of the Leafs forward totem pole.

Overall, I think it likely that some of the older forwards are “auditioning” for jobs elsewhere, as their upside is near it’s peak.  But until they’re sent on their way, it’s nice to know that the Leafs have 3 seriously threatening lines to throw over the boards at any given moment, and the 4th is far from horrible in the offensive end.

I don’t actually think it will stay that way for long, as Brian Burke’s vision of an NHL club doesn’t typically involve having 4 lines that mainly consist of skill players.  So it will be interesting to see who he moves, and what he packages together to get something out of other NHL GM’s.  I’m curious to see where the Leafs will be a month from now.