Not even sure if anyone even looked at Toronto Maple Leafs.. When I first looked at the roster I figured all players in the league had their attributes lowered to fix the scoring or something so I stuck out the training camp but once I got to looking at the waiver wire and seeing Brett Lebda has better stats than every Toronto D-man except Phaneuf I knew something was very wrong.
Bernier is very average, but after looking at other goalies around the league I can see that he's right around other young canadian goaltenders so it's fine. But Reimer's attributes are worse than AHL goaltenders and it just doesn't make sense.. Reimer and Bernier should be about even.
The D is atrocious. Phaneuf is fine for a star player, definately should not be as good as orginal DB Phaneuf but still a top d-man. But how can Gunnarsson be so low. Liles is still the second best D on the team when he's been AHL fodder and lost his roster spot to the likes of Gardiner and Rielly. Gardiners attributes are horrible, one of the smoothest skaters on the Leafs has 10s in skating, a guy who had a strong playoffs against Boston has AHL techincal stats.. Cody Franson the other half of that pairing is so weak defensively and his amazing slapshot is rated 12. Mark Fraser aint a superstar but he's an NHLer for one reason and one reason only and the 9 checking 12 hitting isn't reflecting that. The sides the defense play on are wrong on a few. Phaneuf and Franson are the only natural RD, Liles, Gardiner and Ranger all play RD as a secondary not primary, the rest are LD.
The forwards are OK, the only problems I see are JVR and Kulemin not being strong defensive players when they are huge parts of the PK. Kulemin especially has grown into a heavy defensive forward rather than offensive one. The AHL players, most of the prospects are OK, the veterans make me sad to see. Ashton and D'amigo rated as non-players essentially, two guys that have NHL futures has sub-10 ratings accross the board and aren't even rated high enough to be AHL players. Trevor Smith and Spencer Abott who are top AHL guys and have been seeing sporadic NHL duty and even slight success in a top-6 role on the Leafs have no offensive capabilities to speak of. Ryan Lasch a nobody is better rated than some NHLers.
I know this is not an easy task and I'm absolutely grateful for the work you guys do. If you guys are shortstaffed on volunteers to do NHL ratings send me an e-mail at
deusexmachinae@hotmail.com. I can do player attributes top to bottom for TML, CBJ and I'll do the research for any other team I were to be tasked with.