I think it's fair to say that a great many of us around here, if not Leafs fans in general, are not thrilled about all of the offseason moves. There's more angst about the players Kyle Dubas traded away than there is the ones Brad Treliving let walk away, but the additions didn't really live up to the hopes and dreams of a fanbase where every single person has a pet theory about the "just one thing" the team lacks to succeed.
We now know that Treliving wanted "snot" and scoring. And this is where I'll begin running down his player choices, with the player that has both.
Tyler Bertuzzi
It is relatively rare to find a player both offensive and offensively gifted, but Bertuzzi manages both with ease. He's off-putting to some fans because of his public vaccination issues, and he's off-putting to other teams because he is the face in the dictionary beside "hard to play against".
There's no real need to dig for the silver lining here, he was a good choice on paper, fits the missing skillset of the top six, adds significant value in generating scoring chances one way or another, and he's cheap and only on a one year deal in case the 3D world is different than the one on paper.
Bertuzzi got married this summer, just not to the Leafs, and given the overall state of the roster with the contracts to be signed, that's likely a good thing.
John Kilingberg
Now you need your shovel. Signing Klingberg for one year at a hair over $4 million is a thing I understand in concept, but the execution is a massive risk. He never was good defensively, and his offensive creation has fallen off a cliff. Only one of those things might be fixed by a new team.
Here's some silver: His scoring isn't really power-play points only. He can and does have some offensive value at five-on-five. He's a hell of a lot better than Matt Dumba, the only other seemingly available choice and one year of the Klingberg experience really is amazingly better than Dumba at term. He can't possibly be as bad as he was with the Ducks, but I think this will end up as subtraction by addition.
Max Domi
Resist the impulse to lump him in with Bertuzzi as a pair of similar players. The difference is astonishingly large. Domi is more offensive in that he's tried to weakly walk back his prior public racist comments and then chose to just keep his mouth shut. (Please keep on keeping quiet.) His offensive gifts range from okay back when he was 25 to very weak lately.
The big difference is that for all his so-called "snot", he's skill-guy-winger level bad in the defensive zone, even though he's spent his career with pretentions to being a centre.
Silver? There isn't much. The Leafs were always going to spend about $3 million on another forward, and the pickings were slim, but maybe Domi didn't get re-signed in Dallas because they realized, as many have before, that he's all hat, no cattle.
Er, the deal is only for one year, that's the only silver I can find.
David Kämpf
The re-signing of David Kämpf makes a lot more sense now with Treliving's obsession with scoring ability in new hires. Kämpf is going to have to revert to his 2021-2022 defensive results if he's the only centre on the team other than Matthews who isn't so lost in the d-zone, he needs a crumb trail to find his way out.
Silver? He's on a low enough contract it will seem cheap this time next year, and he is a committed 82+ games player who never quits.
Ryan Reaves
Reaves is loved by everyone, it seems, even people who don't believe in the fallacy of deterrence still like him. There are only five NHLers with an AAV of $1.3 to $1.35 million along with Reaves. I'd take any one of them over him.
That's it, that's the whole thing – cloud, silver lining, all of it. He's a null factor on the ice, and the guys will like him.
Dylan Gambrell
Gambrell is a centre of no meaningful ability at five-on-five, but with genuine PK skills. "He will clear waivers" shall have to do as his tarnished silver lining.
Well now, isn't that a cheerful rundown?
Your turn, who do you think is going to be a surprise and massively outplay my pessimism?
