Leafs sign defenceman Simon Benoit [1 year, $775k AAV]

[CarltonTheBear]

https://twitter.com/MapleLeafs/status/1696175828936101977

24-year old physical defenceman type. Played in Anaheim last year, with results that were pretty not good. But that was in a role higher than he'll see here. Actually played with Klingberg a decent amount. Likely a 7-8 defenceman here. Could see himself on the roster if Timmins doesn't fit cap wise. I suspected last week he'd get a camp PTO from us.

 

[bustaheims]

Seems like a perfectly reasonable depth signing. Don't expect him to get a ton of playing time, but useful, nevertheless.

 

[herman]

He has Tom Wilson (x2) and Mason Marchment on his fight card. He's also not very good at fighting; both fights with Wilson went exactly the same way lol.

He also causes a lot of scrums with the way his hits sometimes turn out.

He does hockey pretty ok though (mostly through effort and aggresiveness), especially for someone who grinded his way up from being undrafted to landing an NHL gig. I think he'd do okay as a 7/8 if we have the cap space to accommodate spares.

 

[herman]

https://x.com/jfreshhockey/status/1696181450578550980

 

[rdowdall]

https://twitter.com/jfreshhockey/status/1696181450578550980

Pretty much all of Anaheim's defence is in that lower left quadrant.  That's pretty impressive in a bad way.

 

[dappleganger]

https://twitter.com/jfreshhockey/status/1696181450578550980

Pretty much all of Anaheim's defence is in that lower left quadrant.  That's pretty impressive in a bad way.

When you see that, all the Anaheim D in the spot, that's got to be the element of coaching, no?

 

[rdowdall]

https://twitter.com/jfreshhockey/status/1696181450578550980

Pretty much all of Anaheim's defence is in that lower left quadrant.  That's pretty impressive in a bad way.

When you see that, all the Anaheim D in the spot, that's got to be the element of coaching, no?

I got to thinking about that too, and I figured it was either coaching, or perhaps a lack of skill up front to keep the pressure on the other team.  If you look, there are three Toronto d-men in the upper right quadrant, and I think that some of that has to be because of playing with Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Tavares.

 

[herman]

This is just left shot Michael Stone.