Would the Leafs be better off Drafting a Defenseman???
Posted 10:35 AM ET | Comments 0
With many Leaf fans looking forward and counting the days till Draft day where there beloved leafs will draft there franchise player who will bring the blue and white to the promise land. Some dream of JT after him leading Team Canada to Gold at the WJC. Others dream about Evander Kane and his amazing hands or Brayden Schenn who seems to be the Burke style player we all would love on our team. What your not finding on peoples wish list is a defenseman, which most people don't think we need due to the fact we have according to some people 8 NHL caliber dman. We also lack that star player upfront that will compete for the league lead in goals. So i ask the question is that really what this team needs?
Looking at some stats the leafs are tied in 12th overall with 150GF in the nhl and are 7th overall in the east. That's not too bad for a team that supposedly only has 1 top 6 forward. So then why are the leafs bottom feeders this year and will be for the next year or so. Some will be quick to point out the fact that our goaltending has been less then stellar which i will agree with. Toskala has let in his fair amount of weak goals this year but lets not place all the blame on his shoulders as 2 other goalies have also dawned the pads this year and niether have done much better. The Leafs defense which was supposed to be our best in years has really laid an egg this year and it's defiantly not a golden one. The Leafs are dead last in goals against this year. How many people would of thought that at the start of the year with our 8 nhl defenseman and defensive minded coach. Not me for one i was much more worried about the leafs putting the puck in the net this year and getting ready for a lot of low scoring games.
So by going by the numbers its our defense and goaltending that seem to need the help more then anything at the draft this year. I'm aware this draft is very forward heavy with only 2 dman probably going in the top 10 this year. Now I'm not saying the leafs should draft a dman i'm just saying that its an option that should be looked at especially if you can get a guy like hedman and Cowen is no slouch either. We have Pogge sitting in the wings waiting to take over between the pipes so hopefully that will be able to solve the goaltending problems. People will also say that we don't need D as we have Schenn, yes we do have schenn but he can't do it alone he's a great building block but not the whole wall.
Burke says he likes to build from the net out so if he's happy with Pogge then the next logical step will be building up our D and with up to 3 dman said to being traded it might make sense for the Leafs to draft Hedman or Cowen. WE saw it with the Ducks Burke likes to have two stud Dman who play a whole lot of time. But lets be honest who doesn't want that right?
*also my first blog don't rip into my to hard. Will try to post one every week. Thanks for reading.
Looking at some stats the leafs are tied in 12th overall with 150GF in the nhl and are 7th overall in the east. That's not too bad for a team that supposedly only has 1 top 6 forward. So then why are the leafs bottom feeders this year and will be for the next year or so. Some will be quick to point out the fact that our goaltending has been less then stellar which i will agree with. Toskala has let in his fair amount of weak goals this year but lets not place all the blame on his shoulders as 2 other goalies have also dawned the pads this year and niether have done much better. The Leafs defense which was supposed to be our best in years has really laid an egg this year and it's defiantly not a golden one. The Leafs are dead last in goals against this year. How many people would of thought that at the start of the year with our 8 nhl defenseman and defensive minded coach. Not me for one i was much more worried about the leafs putting the puck in the net this year and getting ready for a lot of low scoring games.
So by going by the numbers its our defense and goaltending that seem to need the help more then anything at the draft this year. I'm aware this draft is very forward heavy with only 2 dman probably going in the top 10 this year. Now I'm not saying the leafs should draft a dman i'm just saying that its an option that should be looked at especially if you can get a guy like hedman and Cowen is no slouch either. We have Pogge sitting in the wings waiting to take over between the pipes so hopefully that will be able to solve the goaltending problems. People will also say that we don't need D as we have Schenn, yes we do have schenn but he can't do it alone he's a great building block but not the whole wall.
Burke says he likes to build from the net out so if he's happy with Pogge then the next logical step will be building up our D and with up to 3 dman said to being traded it might make sense for the Leafs to draft Hedman or Cowen. WE saw it with the Ducks Burke likes to have two stud Dman who play a whole lot of time. But lets be honest who doesn't want that right?
*also my first blog don't rip into my to hard. Will try to post one every week. Thanks for reading.