Photo credit: Charles LeClaire – Imagn Images
Former tough guy Jay Rosehill shredded the Maple Leafs’ bottom six forwards and believes they’re a big part off the problem in Toronto right now.
We’re just 25 games into the season and the Toronto Maple Leafs have looked ordinary at best. Their goaltending wasn’t particularly sharp to start the season, their defense was slow and had a tendency to play small, and the offense hit several snags amid a bevy of injuries.
However, their secondary scoring is once again at the top of the list of concerns, as the non-core members have gone silent. The Leafs’ off-season revolved around making depth additions and finding secondary scoring options to alleviate the pressure on the top guns, but to no avail.
Former Maple Leafs forward Jay Rosehill feels frustrated with what he has seen thus far and shredded several members of the bottom-6 for their abysmal play to start the season during a segment on his Leafs Morning Take podcast earlier this week.
The problem is you tried to build this team to play heavy. There’s nobody heavy on this team. Dakota Joshua, are you kidding me? He’s heavy? Is Jarnkrok going to do anything? Bobby McMann is a warm body – the whole bottom-6 is just warm bodies at this point in time.
He then adds that they’re ineffective because they haven’t adjusted to the speed of the game, which makes them look outmatched and overwhelmed when they face the likes of Montreal, Chicago or Carolina.
They’re rendered ineffective. So many of them can’t keep up to the league and to the style of play that the opposition is playing. They’re just overwhelmed and outmatched. No effectiveness whatsoever.
He’s not wrong for feeling that way either, because the Leafs have looked dreadful at times for this very reason. Bobby McMann, Max Domi, Matias Maccelli, Nicolas Roy, Dakota Joshua, and Calle Jarnkrok have combined for 22 goals in 25 games, which is far from acceptable for players playing anywhere between 12-15 minutes a night.
Head coach Craig Berube has also tried everything in the book to get some of these guys going, whether that meant changing the lines and giving them looks with Auston Matthews or William Nylander, or even scratching them for a game to give them a mental reset. Unfortunately, nothing has worked out so far.
Things haven’t started off well but there’s still time for the bottom-6 forwards to right the ship. The Leafs have a very cramped schedule heading into the holiday break with 11 games on tap, so they’re going to need all hands on deck, and that includes the likes of McMann, Joshua, and Jarnkrok among others.
Previously on Toronto Hockey Daily