After season after season of regular season success and playoff disappointment, many fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs have maintained a reserved disposition towards the start of the upcoming 2024-25 season. It makes sense — despite however much talent has been on the roster, their playoff success (or lack thereof) speaks for itself. After a strong offseason, though, the Maple Leafs are poised to make a breakthrough in this regard. Here are three reasons for maintaining a positive outlook in 2024-25:
1. Much-Improved Defense Corps
Let’s face it — the Maple Leafs’ defence corps hasn’t been all that great in recent years. On the defensive front, things have been more or less fine, but they haven’t been able to muster up much of anything outside of Morgan Rielly in terms of moving the puck up-ice. This offseason, though, general manager (GM) Brad Treliving sought to change that with the additions of Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Tanev, though predominantly known for his defensive play, is a sneakily underrated puck-mover. He isn’t much for points, but his puck-retrieval ability in his own end speaks for itself in terms of its importance in breaking out the other way. He’s quick to send the puck to either his defence partner — who should be Rielly in 2024-25 — or a nearby forward. According to AllThreeZones, Tanev ranked in the 81st percentile for neutral zone shot attempts, meaning that he was quite effective in passing the puck in the neutral zone to players who would then be able to get a shot off while on the rush. At the very least, he’s a major puck-moving improvement over the likes of TJ Brodie and Ilya Lyubushkin, Rielly’s two most common defence partners last season. Rielly should be able to do more with the puck now that Tanev should be relieving some of the pressure off of him.
Moving on to the other defensive addition, Ekman-Larsson is one of the most underrated puck-moving defencemen in the entire NHL. There was — and is — a bit of a pushback on his four-year, $3.5 million average annual value (AAV) contract considering his career trajectory leading up to last season, but the reservations about his new deal come along with some false concerns that he won’t be able to replicate or come close to the player he was in 2023-24. Ekman-Larsson’s role last season as the Florida Panthers’ puck-mover on the third pairing was the perfect position for him as he was able to feast on weaker…
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