Maple Leafs depth chart 1.0: How do Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi, John Klingberg and Ryan Reaves fit in?

“We’re better today than we were yesterday, and that’s the goal here.”

That was Brad Treliving not long after the Maple Leafs added Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi, on top of Ryan Reaves and John Klingberg, in free agency. And that feels like the question right now doesn’t it: Have the Leafs gotten better? And if so, how?

A deep dive into the depth chart will help us answer those and many other questions.

Forwards

In: Ryan Reaves, Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, Dylan Gambrell

Out: Ryan O’Reilly, Michael Bunting, Noel Acciari, Alex Kerfoot, Zach Aston-Reese, Wayne Simmonds

For context’s sake, here’s the forward group that head coach Sheldon Keefe iced in what proved to be the final game of the season:

Not pictured: Matthew Knies, who was hurt and will obviously factor into things next season.

Now, let’s take a look at how the forward group might well shake out in the fall:

Absent O’Reilly, the Leafs have gotten weaker in the middle. That much is clear. Not signing David Kämpf would have thinned things out even further, which helps to explain, even more so now, why the Leafs were willing to pay up to keep him around.

If weaker in the middle, the Leafs have beefed up at left wing. They’ve added a pair of legitimate top-six options. Bertuzzi and Domi could both conceivably play on lines with either Auston Matthews or John Tavares and bring some spice to the table offensively.

Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe was increasingly stuck for options that way last season. Michael Bunting increasingly became a liability on the top line while Alex Kerfoot and Calle Järnkrok were Band-Aid solutions who tended toward overexposure the longer they hung up top.

It said a lot that Knies looked like the Leafs’ best option on the left side after a handful of NHL games.

Bertuzzi should make up for the 20-ish goals that Bunting was good for, with a few less fireworks. “He gets to the areas that you have to get to score goals,” Treliving said.

Domi brings the offensive juice, on the other hand, that Kerfoot lacked for regular top-six duty. The playmaking especially and the potential to score a bit himself.

Whether Domi scores 20 goals again next season remains to be seen. He’s been all over the place as a scorer in the NHL. What he’s never had is talent like this around him before. It’s, uhh, not even close.

Is old, creaky Patrick Kane the best dude in that bunch? Young Clayton Keller?

There was some thought in the immediate aftermath of the Domi signing that he would play centre for the Leafs like he did for Chicago last season. But Treliving said that while Domi’s ability to play centre is appealing, they’ve got him pegged to play the wing initially.

Which makes sense.

It might not be all the time, but if you’re going to maximize Domi, that vision and creativity, it makes all kinds of sense to stick him out there with like-minded talent — with Matthews, with Mitch Marner, with Tavares, with William Nylander.

Domi is also on the weaker side defensively. A 2-3 of Tavares and Domi in the middle is (probably) not tenable in a playoff series.

Domi has known Matthews for a long time (they share the same agent) and was teammates with Marner with the London Knights. It’s conceivable that Keefe brings all three together at some point next season.

Max Domi controls the puck as St. Louis Blues center Jordan Kyrou defends. (Jeff Curry / USA Today)

The Leafs hope Bertuzzi and Domi will tweak the personality of the team in what Treliving described as their “DNA” — their rambunctiousness and tenacity. “We need a little bit more snot to our game,” he said.

I’m not sure the Leafs lacked that by the end of last season, with Bunting, O’Reilly, Acciari and Sam Lafferty. But clearly, it was a priority to replace those elements when those guys went elsewhere and add even more in the intimidation arena with Reaves.

“As much as the game’s changed, some things have never changed,” Treliving said. “At the most important times, the rink shrinks. There’s no space. You need courage and we wanted to add players like that.”

As with Bertuzzi, the Leafs signed Domi for only the one season. Two players in contract years with lots to prove. (Same deal with John Klingberg on the back end.)

Playing Bertuzzi and Domi on the top two lines might keep Knies out of the top six and stationed in third-line duty with Kämpf and Järnkrok.

It’s worth noting that:

A) Knies won’t be glued to that position, if he ends up there at all. He’ll inevitably play with both Matthews and Tavares, especially if he performs with the same kind of verve as he did in the postseason.
B) He’s a better fit to play with Kämpf than either Bertuzzi or Domi, what with his size and speed.
C) He’ll start next season as a rookie; the Leafs might not want to thrust him right into the toughest minutes from day one (even if he thrived in those minutes right away in the playoffs).

Bertuzzi and Domi may liven things up on offence, but pop them in, along with Reaves, and the Leafs have lost something as far as defence and utility goes. O’Reilly, Acciari and Kerfoot, in particular, were players Keefe could rely on in a variety of situations. They were trustworthy on defence. They defended late leads. They killed penalties. They could fill a variety of roles.

Bertuzzi, Domi and especially Reaves bring less of that.

Bertuzzi and Domi will spice up the Leafs’ No. 2 power-play unit in addition to their likely roles in the top six. But neither will kill penalties (though you can never say never with Keefe) and when it comes to late-game defensive situations, Keefe is bound to look elsewhere — to Järnkrok, say.

Reaves will be limited to less than 10 minutes per game during the regular season and even less than that, in all likelihood, in the playoffs.

When he was hired as GM, Treliving spoke of how much the Leafs had grown defensively under Keefe. But you have to wonder if the Leafs take a step back in that regard next season — if, in trying to ensure there’s more offence beyond the stars, they won’t be quite as stingy defensively.

That’s the tradeoff the Leafs are making. It’s understandable after the way things played out against Florida. Time will tell if it was worthwhile.

Ryan Reaves. (Jerome Miron / USA Today)

And while they have taken steps to give the stars more help, it remains to be seen whether the Leafs will find any offence from their bottom six come playoff time. That’s a long ways away obviously and the roster will inevitably change by then. But if Kämpf is leading a third line and Reaves is playing on a fourth, goals will be hard to come by.

At that point, it’s possible that Reaves isn’t playing at all, that Keefe turns to Nick Robertson instead for offence, or that Domi is centring a more offensive-leaning third line (an option, again, that I’m skeptical of).

That was one of the downsides of signing Reaves: it might block a roster spot from a more useful, young contributor like Robertson or Bobby McMann or even Pontus Holmberg.

One thing that hasn’t been addressed — again: the No. 2 centre spot.

That’s not ideal, obviously.

Again and again, in the postseason especially, the Leafs have seen Tavares exposed in the middle, even when he’s had Marner by his side. Outside of splurging on O’Reilly, free agency was never going to be the path to upgrading that position.

It’s only through trade (or a covert plan to move Nylander or Marner there) that the Leafs can address that need. Maybe that move still arrives before the start of the season or maybe it’s another O’Reilly-like trade deadline acquisition.

Or maybe, for whatever reason, the Leafs don’t see it as a need at all.

I’d like to see Holmberg get the first crack at the fourth-line centre gig next season. Gambrell and Lafferty are both alternative options.

Defence

In: John Klingberg

Out: Justin Holl, Luke Schenn, Erik Gustafsson

Do the Leafs have a better defence today than they did at the end of the postseason? I’m not really sure. At best, it’s gone sideways.

The defence wasn’t exactly a strong suit in the playoffs. Only one pair stuck: Morgan Rielly with Luke Schenn. And Schenn has left for Nashville.

One glaring issue for the non-Rielly-Schenn groups was puck movement.

From Holl to Mark Giordano and Jake McCabe and even, shockingly, TJ Brodie, the Leafs crew on D was often snowed under by forechecks from the Lightning and Panthers and unable to break out cleanly.

John Klingberg. (Jeffrey Becker / USA Today)

Klingberg will help with that. Not just slinging it to the forwards, but skating it out himself. He’ll also give the Leafs a non-Rielly injection of offensive zest from the back end. Klingberg excels at picking pucks off the boards in the O-zone and owns a big-time shot, even if he doesn’t always use it.

Keefe will have to decide whether he wants to try something new and have Klingberg lead the No. 1 power-play unit in place of Rielly.

Like Bertuzzi and Domi up front, Klingberg will help the O but may also take something away on D. He’s known for running around in his own zone, for trying to do too much and overcomplicating things. Even when moving the puck, Klingberg can look for the overly complicated pass instead of the simple one.

He was Minnesota’s No. 5 defenceman in the playoffs.

A prospective top four of Rielly, Brodie, McCabe and Klingberg still feels like it’s lacking in both talent and snarl, especially when you contrast it with the top groups for the past three Cup winners.

McCabe looked overmatched in a top-four role in his first postseason.

By the end of things, he was stationed on the third pair. Maybe that changes in his second go-around or maybe not.

Keefe and assistant coach Dean Chynoweth could move the puzzle pieces around in a way that keeps McCabe playing lighter competition, protects Klingberg with Brodie and allows Timothy Liljegren to move into more regular duty in the top four.

Something like so:

That still doesn’t feel sturdy enough for a long playoff run.

This group continues to lack a Jake Muzzin type, someone who can handle the toughest stuff in a playoff series. Klingberg didn’t help with that. The Leafs will also be counting on a 33-year-old Brodie next season. The defence is still missing the kind of beef that Treliving tends to prefer.

“I think I’ve been open and honest in saying I like long D,” Treliving said. “I think we’ll still look at that.”

The presumably available Calgary defenders — Nikita Zadorov, Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin — would all fit in one way or another, though Treliving would have to send out money to make that work.

The free-agent answers are all gone, so a trade feels like the only avenue to improvement — which doesn’t necessarily have to come during the offseason.

That’s another trade-deadline possibility to keep in mind for way down the line.

As Treliving said of the D, “Still a work in progress there.”

Goaltenders

In: None

Out: Erik Källgren

What’s only notable here is that Matt Murray is still on the team.

Maybe that changes before camp with a trade or maybe the Leafs do end up using the second window to buy him out. That or they bring Murray, Ilya Samsonov and Joseph Woll to camp as Treliving suggested was a possibility.

The Leafs GM expressed some skepticism about Woll carrying over last season’s success into next season. And that’s not an unreasonable stance. It’s still too early to assume anything about Woll. He made seven regular-season starts last season and two more in the playoffs. That is the definition of a small sample size.

And yet, bringing three goalies to camp would make for the possibility of placing Woll on waivers if the Leafs get to the end of camp and all three goalies are healthy. Will they all be healthy by the end of camp? Will Murray be healthy by the end of camp? Maybe not. But rolling the dice on that possibility doesn’t make much sense. Nor does leaving Woll, unproven but still young and promising, up for grabs on waivers.

Or maybe for the Leafs under Treliving, it does …?

Joseph Woll. (Peter Joneleit / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Maybe the organization still believes the two best goalies in the organization are Samsonov and Murray. Again, Woll’s track record is quite limited.

You’d have to assume the Leafs will attempt (again?) to find a trade for Murray before that second buyout window rolls around. Maybe it’s been more difficult to unload him than it was Petr Mrazek last summer. Murray’s $4.68 million cap hit may be too much for opposing teams to swallow in a flat-cap environment. That, plus the $6 million in salary he’s still owed and the 10 teams he can block trades to. If they can’t trade him, the Leafs almost have to buy Murray out or find another way to worm their way under the cap by the start of the season.

One question that probably hasn’t been asked enough: Is the goaltending, as currently constructed (Murray or not), actually good enough?

What if Samsonov takes a step backward next season after a career year? What then? Is Woll really ready to assume a bigger role? Can he give the Leafs 30-40 starts regardless?

Is it possible that Treliving pokes around on the trade market? What if Barry Trotz really is willing to deal Juuse Saros, who has two more years on his contract at $5 million on the cap? Would Treliving take a chance on his old Flames netminder Jacob Markstrom after a down year in Calgary — if the Flames decide to tear it all down? Markstrom is 33 and has three years left at $6 million on the cap, so maybe not?

Does trading for a year of Connor Hellebuyck make any sense?

It might be worth a phone call.

So, have the Leafs gotten better so far this offseason? In some ways, yes. In other ways, no. Honestly, it’s way too soon to tell. All the tinkering will mean nothing if the decision to bring back the same core and coach doesn’t pay off.

The changes are, at the very least, interesting.

(Top photo of Max Domi: Melissa Tamez / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference and Cap Friendly