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Maple Leafs Mailbag: Should Sandin take Rielly’s power-play spot?

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By on Sport
Maple Leafs Mailbag: Should Sandin take Rielly’s power-play spot?

The Toronto Maple Leafs can hit cruise control and still capture their first regular-season division crown in 21 years. They could dress a Hart Trophy finalist for the first time since 1993. They could roll into the post-season as a heavy favourite to win not just one round but two.

Yet the fanbase still has questions and concerns.

So, let’s dig in.

Only kicking and screaming.

As I wrote about Saturday night, Rasmus Sandin wowed his teammates and impressed his coach during his three-game run on last week’s road trip.

He’s playing like a young man out to steal jobs. And with Zach Bogosian (shoulder) questionable for Game 1 of the post-season, there is an opportunity for Sandin to take either Bogosian or Travis Dermott’s spot in the lineup. His play should dictate.

That said, once the Leafs officially secure the North’s No. 1 seed, Keefe won’t hesitate to use the final few regular-season games to experiment with combinations.

He’d like to work deadline acquisition Ben Hutton (another lefty) in at some point and see what he looks like on the penalty kill. And I wouldn’t even be shocked to see Martin Marincin make his 2020-21 NHL debut as a reward for being a loyal taxi squad guy all season.

All things being equal, I believe the organization is rooting for Sandin to grab this thing by the throat.

“I can’t say enough about how well Sandman played in those couple games. He’s so poised,” Justin Holl raved Monday. “He looks like a guy who’s been playing for years.”

Last week was a fantastic start. Let’s see how the 21-year-old responds to a desperate, heavy Montreal forecheck Tuesday.

That was interesting to see, even though it was for just one shift Saturday.

“The power play part is a big part of his game. He’s got great confidence there. I’ve seen him from a very young age at the American League level take over a power play,” Keefe said post-game. “We knew when we had him in the lineup, we wanted to introduce him to the power-play and give him an opportunity. The way the power plays were going tonight, it was tough to get him out there a whole lot. We gave him the one shift with the top group.”

On the surface, throwing Sandin on PP1 is a fun trial, a little reward for the hardworking, patient rookie.

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In the larger picture, it raises some questions about Rielly. He’s a fine distributor, but he is no threat to shoot from the point and seldom even fakes like he’s going to let ’er fly. The Maple Leafs’ power-play, as you might’ve heard, has struggled for weeks now.

At the risk of looking too far in the future, there is also Rielly’s contract situation. He’s eligible to sign off on a significant raise in July. The rest of the Leafs’ top four defencemen are locked up through 2023 or 2024.

Sandin is younger and cheaper than Rielly. He’s also a poised, smooth-skating, puck-moving lefty who wants to run a power-play. His trajectory suggests top-four potential.

A fascinating subplot is bubbling beneath the surface here.

This is something the NHL is considering, as Elliotte Friedman and Chris Johnston reported on Headlines, but the Players’ Association would have to give the thumbs-up.

I’m not sure how much “settling” is required to move into a U.S. hotel. In speaking to a number of players, the sense is they would rather spend as little time in a bubble — away from home and family and their regular practice rink and dressing room — as possible.

More likely is that the winner of the Canadian division flies south at that point and the league establishes a final four bubble. A COVID-19 outbreak with just four clubs remaining feels like a worst-case scenario.

Once in the U.S., you’d have to wonder if Canadian players would just get vaccinated at that point (if they haven’t been already).

Provided you wear matching masks and remain six feet apart, this feels like a safe decision. You do you.

Thanks to the acquisition of Nick Foligno, Toronto already has two legit scoring lines.

John Tavares has scored seven goals and 16 points in his past 11 games. William Nylander has nine points in his past six games.

“John and Will are really rolling right now, and I think no matter who we’ve had with them on the left side, those guys have been playing extremely well,” Keefe said.

These duos are working.

No chance the coach risks ticking off two of the best players in the world — Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews — by splitting them up at the most important time of year.

Once Zach Hyman returns, both of the top two lines will have that responsible, gritty worker bee on the left side to complement them.

“I thought that was the best deal at the trade deadline — Nick Foligno coming to Toronto,” Bruce Boudreau said during a recent radio appearance. “They keep moving Hyman back and forth, but in the end, when he plays with Matthews and Marner, that is as dynamic a line as there is anywhere in the NHL.”

How about a Foligno-Tavares-Nylander trio?

“You might get the same type of production almost as you are from the first line,” Boudreau figures.

Yep.

OddsShark has the Leafs third at +700, behind the Avalanche (+350) and reigning champ Lightning (+600).

Money Puck, an excellent predictor of such things, has given Toronto the best odds to reach the final four (40.4 per cent). And watching the Leafs’ sweep of the Jets last week should reinforce the idea that their path to a divisional crown should be easier than anyone else’s.

Much will hinge on health and goaltending by that point. Money Puck gives Toronto a 10.6 per cent shot of hoisting the Cup, behind only Colorado (13.5 per cent) and Washington (11.5 per cent):

Another trusty number-cruncher, Sports Club Stats, is less bullish on the Buds, however. That site has Vegas as the favourite to win it all (27.9 per cent), followed by Colorado (19.8 per cent), Carolina (12.1 per cent) and Tampa Bay (seven per cent). By Sports Club’s model, the Maple Leafs have the fifth-best chance (6.4 per cent) of going the distance.

Let’s see how things unfold, but I’m not sure you can look at Dubas’s off-season and in-season moves and see management as the issue here.

The offence is dynamic. The defence was overhauled in an impressive manner. The goaltending depth is improved. And intangibles like leadership and grit and culture all deserve checkmarks.

He spent at the deadline without touching the prospect pool.

You can quibble about David Rittich’s rental price or strength of competition, but Toronto has delivered its best regular season in years and put all challengers (first Montreal, then Edmonton, then Winnipeg) in their place whenever threatened.

Is it Dubas’s fault that the world’s most expensive power-play personnel is in a funk? Or that Frederik Andersen is battling injury? Feels like a stretch.

This is on the players now.

And if they can’t win a single round — which feels like a big if at this point — then I’d bet on a big trade from the core before I’d bet on a pink slip.

Between those two, Domino’s.

But if I’m going mainstream chain, my loyalties rest with the oiled-up pans of Pizza Hut — my alma mater. When I graduated from mowing lawns, the local Hut gave me my first big break. As a scrappy 14-year-old I climbed the corporate pizza ladder from busboy to dishwasher to Caesar salad chef to, finally, pizza maker (a.k.a. the big time). What my first real job lacked in pay, it made up for in free make-your-own personal pizzas at the end of a shift.

These days, my go-to pizza spot is a mom-and-pop place called Casa di Giorgio. If you live on the east side of Toronto, check it out.

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