Sportsnet: Frank Seravalli on the work the Toronto Maple Leafs still need to do to become true, Stanley Cup contenders.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Jesse Fuchs: “For more on the NHL, it’s Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. Frank, kind of a wild Thursday night at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Down five against Columbus, the Leafs come all the way back to earn a point but lose in OT.
Now, for the most part, the results and the amount of points they’ve collected are there this season but does this have a same old Leafs kind of feel to it?
Seravalli: “It does for me, and I’ll actually take it a step further Jesse and say that I think right now as currently constituted, the Leafs are worse off than they were in previous years because I have more question marks right now about their blue line.
And then also their goaltending situation. Yes, I know Joe Woll will be back in a couple of weeks. And the ship should write itself with how well Joe Woll has played this year. But the questions still remain nonetheless with Ilya Samsonov, and more than that, they need help defending.
How is Brad Treliving going to address that? He sort of played coy to this point saying that you know, we have to judge assets and cost and, and what exactly we have going out the door. But this feels like another one of those years with this Leaf team, with all the players up front that they’ve spent all this money on over the last number of years. and another Hart Trophy type season in terms of production from Austin Matthews. That they really need to be going for it and the East is also incredibly wide open, maybe even more so than in years past.
All that spells, the Toronto Maple Leafs spending but tell me who they’re plugging in first in terms of their defense, and then I’ll tell you how I feel about their Cup chances.”
Fuch: “They’re good questions. Brad Treliving he’s got a lot of work to do.”