The Toronto Maple Leafs finish up their final road trip of the season against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday, with their hopes of finishing in the bottom five of the NHL standings alive and well with just six games left. The Leafs at 32-31-13 are at 77 points with 76 games played, but the St. Louis Blues, Winnipeg Jets, and Seattle Kraken are all within two points and have games in hand, and after their 4-1 win over Detroit on Saturday afternoon, the hard-charging NY Rangers are just four points behind Toronto.
The Leafs lost defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson in San Jose on Thursday, and on Saturday, the club called up blueliner William Villeneuve from the AHL Marlies. The promotion was long overdue for the 24-year-old, since Toronto is well out of the playoff race and should be giving some of their internal prospects an opportunity at NHL playing time late in the season.
Villeneuve has posted 28 points (3 goals, 25 assists) in 58 games for the Marlies, but it is not certain whether the righty blueliner will make his NHL debut against the Kings. Ekman-Larsson’s lower-body injury has him doubtful on Saturday, but the Leafs have Troy Stecher as a depth defenseman. Once again, the ice time allocation of head coach Craig Berube is baffling, since Toronto has been well out of playoff contention for more than a month.
There should be no doubt of giving youngsters under contract, like Villeneuve and Jacob Quillan, more of an opportunity to play, while pending UFA’s Calle Jarnkrok and Stecher should be sitting, but this may be Berube doing what he wants while he still can.
The chatter regarding the search for a new management team continues to be convoluted. The landscape established by MLSE boss Keith Pelley during his press conference earlier in the week is broad, and did not really confirm any particular path. Some are interpreting Pelley’s pronouncement as a sign that he will seek to bring back a team president or president of hockey operations to fill the vacancy left by the departure of Brendan Shanahan, along with a GM to serve under him, but TSN’s Darren Dreger indicated on Thursday’s Insider Trading that he has heard that the club is looking for just a GM.
That would be consistent with Pelley’s recent policy of eliminating middle management in all of the Rogers holdings except the sainted Blue Jays, something that might come back to bite them if they do not recognize that the Maple Leafs supercede all the others in importance to the city of Toronto.
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