by Brandt Corbin
The Million dollar question in the off-season for the Toronto Maple Leafs is do they require a #1 centre to take the next step and qualify for the playoffs? The top 3 unrestricted free agents down the middle is Brad Richards, Jason Arnott & Tim Connolly. Richards is the only likely candidate for the Leafs. Arnott is getting to old and is not as productive, Connolly on the other hand is to soft & injury prone.
Other question in Leafland is can they make the playoffs without acquired a top flight centreman. HaveTyler Bozak & Nazim Kadri made enough progress to become the playmaking centerman for Phil Kessel. Bozak liklely will only be #2 centreman, but Kadri has full potential 1 day to become that top flight centre. The other option is newly acquired Joe Colbourne, the prospect who was acquired in the Tomas Kaberle trade. Colbourne makes his Leaf debut Saturday on a line with Joffrey Lupul & Kessel.
The other top 6 forwards are set in stone. Nikolai Kulemin has doubled his output from 2009-10 season, then there is Kessel, Clarke MacAthur, Lupul & Mikael Grabovski. All of the above have and can continue to score 25-30 goals each. One can only assume that Darryl Boyce & Tim Brent have earned themselves one-way contracts for next year. Both journeyman battled hard becoming the Leafs most depenable shot blockers & penalty killers. The other bottom half of the Leags starts with Mike Brown, Colby Armstrong, Kadri, Bozak, & Colton Orr and/or Jay Rosehill. A good mixture of grit and toughness, with some speed as well.
While some want the centreman, there is also a strong argument they need a stronger defensive presence, as the teams penalty kill is again near the bottom of the league. They do have tons of cap space, so they might try and adress everything, but some bodies would need to go if that were the case.
Who if any would be tradebait during the offseason? Maybe Armstrong but he’s exactly what the Leafs have missed in previous years, a rugged forward who can score 15 or more goals. All we know is Brian Burke will not blow things up, most Leaf fans would agree the Leafs should have started the this rebuild 2 or 3 years earlier.
Could Burke move Colton Orr to Edmonton?
If Colton Orr were to be shopped around, one of the teams on the wish list could be the Edmonton Oilers. Why Colton Orr to Edmonton you ask? Orr’s best hockey in his career was played under then Rangers head coach, now Oilers coach Tom Renney. The proof is in the pudding, in 12 playoff games (under Renney) Orr average 14 minutes played almost 50% more ice time than the regular season. This year in 42 Leaf games Orr has averaged just over 5 miuntes of ice time.
The reason why Orr might become available because of the emergence of Jay Rosehill. Rosehill, a 26-year-old American comes at half the price that Orr would, provides the same services, and has better speed and some would argue skill than #28. Orr has 2 years left at 1 million per, so the Leafs might want to move that contract while they can.
The reason why the Oilers would require Orr’s services, they have Steve Macintyre. A 6’8 heavyweight, but who has been a healthy scratch 48 times this year, obvoiusly Renney does not have the same confidence he had in Orr.
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