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2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

herman said:
“I heard a story not too long ago, about two years ago, when the regime change happened, the new group comes into Toronto, led by Brad Treliving, and they start meeting with all the players just to get to know them, to talk to them. OK, what's the vibe like? What's your sense of where the team is at?
And one of the players, a forward who was like a depth role at the time, had just said, like, we don't feel like we've got any role here. Like, we're not truly part of it.”
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This is something I wondered about when it became clear that the flat cap was going to lead to the Browns, Kapanens, Hymans, Johnssons and the like getting moved out for a rotating cast of league minimum supporting players. Extreme wealth inequality and a hollowed out middle class isn’t something I think is good in any other context, don’t know why I bought it for team sports.
 
Frank E said:
It's been mentioned around here for a while, but honestly I'm starting the think the Leafs acquire the most boring guys I've ever seen:

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Finally watched this video (took me awhile to get through the 4 ads TSN played in front of it). I don't know why but I was a little surprised to hear Maccelli say that two of the guys he played the best and most with in Arizona/Utah were Bjugstad and Crouse.

Looking at his 23/24 season when he had 40 assists and 57 points in 82 games his most frequent line mates were in fact Bjugstad and Crouse by a considerable margin. Next up after that were Alex Kerfoot and Jack McBain. He only spent about 50 minutes (roughly 5% of his 5-on-5 ice-time) with Arizona's top 2 leading scorers in Keller and Schmaltz that season. Despite all that he led the team in 5-on-5 assists (27) and points (39). For some context Marner lead the Leafs in 5-on-5 assists this past season with 35. Matthews was 2nd with 23 (in 67 games). Nylander had just 18 in 82 games. Nylander, even adjusting for games played, has only hit 27 5-on-5 assists once in his past 7 seasons.

For a 23-year old Maccelli to hit those numbers while playing with 3rd line grinders is very impressive. If he can get back to that level of play he could be in for quite a season if he's somewhere in the top-6 forward group. Even if he can get close to that with similar 3rd liners here like Roy and McMann that'd be huge. The Maccelli-Bjugstad-Crouse line had the lowest offensive zone starts for Arizona that year too.
 
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“I heard a story not too long ago, about two years ago, when the regime change happened, the new group comes into Toronto, led by Brad Treliving, and they start meeting with all the players just to get to know them, to talk to them. OK, what's the vibe like? What's your sense of where the team is at?
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I think the biggest problem for me is, who deserved a bigger role out of our bottom 6 players. I get that defining the roles better has been an issue with the team, but I think part of the problem is our bottom 6 has been filled with too many guys who were more mediocre multi-tool players rather than guys who had elite abilities in one or two areas.

We haven't had a bottom 6 filled with guys who are amazing at playing defense...or guys who just run guys through the wall. Kind of hard to give better defined roles when the players aren't really defining that they have that skillset. Not that Patches is the be all player but he identified a lack of physicality on the team in training camp and came out blowing people up. Why was a NAK or one of the 50 waived players not able to try that in their time in Toronto.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1943058700610175288

Curious to see how this plays out. There is quite literally zero chance of him hitting 83 more games in that timeline if he's still here next season.

Would a Chicago or San Jose or Anaheim take the last year of his deal and have him around for vibes and what not? Or maybe it gets to a point where he just terminates the final year of his deal if someone's willing to give him a league minimum contract afterward?
 
I just have a hard time seeing where even a Tanking for McKenna team would waste a roster spot on him. You need bad players to fill out bad rosters but I think you would at least want a player who can play hockey and could have the slight chance of returning an asset at the trade deadline.

Reaves getting a 3 year deal continues to be one of the more baffling contracts that have been handed out by the Leafs in the last few years. I get the 3 year deal for a guy like Lorentz. Barring an injury he's a useful player, even if in a perfect world he isn't an every day forward in the playoffs. Reaves wasn't that kind of player when the Leafs signed him.
 
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