There will be disappointment in some corners that the Maple Leafs added only one new piece before the trade deadline.
But really, in a larger sense, they added three.
Tomas Plekanec, picked up Sunday afternoon from Montreal in a very affordable deal, was the third new piece. The first addition was defenceman Travis Dermott, 21, who was recalled Jan. 5 from the American Hockey League, and is now a player getting 18 minutes a night on the Maple Leaf blue line.
The second was the recall of 21-year-old Kasperi Kapanen on Jan. 29. Kapanen immediately displaced veteran winger Matt Martin, and may be getting more opportunities higher in the Leaf lineup soon.
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Dermott and Kapanen have been reliable parts of Toronto’s substantial improvement over the past six weeks, along with a generous number of home games and the revitalization of Nazem Kadri’s game alongside Mitch Marner. Both have made a sizeable impact.
The 35-year-old Plekanec, meanwhile, isn’t a top-six player any longer, but he adds defensive prowess, penalty killing smarts and another good faceoff man.
“(Plekanec) fits right in with what we’re trying to do and where we’re going,” said Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello after Monday’s trade deadline passed without his team making any further moves.
So while Boston made a bigger splash by acquiring Rick Nash from the New York Rangers, and Tampa added defenceman Ryan McDonagh from the rebuilding Rangers, you could certainly make the argument that any ground the Leafs may have lost in the battle for supremacy in the Atlantic Division is more notional than real.
It’s easy to get caught up in the marquee names, and lose focus on how teams play and how comfortable new players can be fitting in with new clubs. For Dermott and Kapanen, it was easy. The Leafs are a team that plays with speed, and they’re both elite skaters who apprenticed for a considerable period under Sheldon Keefe with the AHL Marlies.
For Plekanec, he’ll be asked to do relatively small things as a support player, so it won’t be a big deal. Brian Boyle was brought in at the trade deadline last year in much of the same role, but Plekanec plays at a pace more in tune with how his new team likes to play.
“That’s what they saw in (Plekanec),” said Montreal coach Claude Julien. “(He) takes those little details to heart and executes them well, which at the end makes a big difference in the game.”
Nash and McDonagh, on the other hand, are expected to be impact players for their new teams even though neither player is having an all-star season. Nash will be expected to supply goals, something he’s never done in the playoffs, while McDonagh, who has played only 49 games this year, will be looking to get back to the level he played at when the Rangers made it to the Stanley Cup final in 2014.
Lamoriello made it clear the Leafs did put in a bid for McDonagh, who is under contract through the end of next season. Clearly, at the right price, the Ranger ex-captain would have added some veteran know-how to a young, developing blue line group that includes Dermott, Morgan Rielly, Nikita Zaitsev and Jake Gardiner.
“We certainly inquired,” said Lamoriello.
The Leafs didn’t get the veteran blueliner, but they kept the cap space, the prospects and the draft picks it would have taken to get him, useful if Drew Doughty and/or Erik Karlsson are available for trades in June. For a team that’s gone from 30th overall to 14th to fifth overall as of Monday, it’s important to remember this has all happened much faster than most believed it would, which means the temptation to think you’re are further ahead than you actually are is also there.
“We’re one of the top teams in the NHL,” said Lamoriello. “It’s up to us to remain consistent in our play. We still have a ways to go. All we have to do is concentrate on getting better.”
There were also suggestions the Leafs pursued Detroit defenceman Mike Green only to find out Green used his no-trade to block a deal on Monday.
“We were not interested (in Green),” said Lamoriello.
The history of the trade deadline tells you it rarely changes the balance of power in the NHL. Remember last year at the deadline? Nashville added only P.A. Parenteau, eschewing other bigger moves, then went all the way to the Cup final.
In other words, the biggest splash at the deadline doesn’t necessarily translate into success in the post-season.
“We feel very good about ourselves,” said Lamoriello. “That’s the course that we’re going to stay on.”
The Leafs went into Monday’s game in Tampa second in the Atlantic, but having played more games than the Lightning or the Bruins. They’ve registered identical 4-3 wins on home ice over both those clubs in the past two weeks.
Mike Babcock’s team is winning, but still surrendering too many goals. They’ve surrendered 24 goals in their past eight games, and are 20th in the league in defence. That’s the area McDonagh would have most likely helped, but if Plekanec can do the job Kadri has been asked to do against the top opposition centres, that could be a significant improvement as well.
Any way you cut it, it’s going to be a major challenge for Toronto to come out of its division, let alone the Eastern Conference. If that’s to happen, it was always going to have to come from the group of players they have now led by centre Auston Matthews and goalie Freddie Andersen.
It’s unlikely any of the players who were traded on Monday or even the subject of trade discussions before the deadline would have changed that.
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