With so many Toronto Maple Leaf fans sidetracked with general manager Brian Burke adding that coveted top-six forward, few have taken the time to notice that, in the event of a lengthy injury to one of the Leafs top forwards, the Leafs may be doomed.
With a top-six that currently features the likes of Kris Versteeg, Phil Kessel (who has only played a full 82 games once in four seasons), Tyler Bozak, Nikolai Kulemin, Michail Grabovski and Colby Armstrong the Leafs are already thin on top-end talent, a loss of one or more of those players for any significant time frame and the Leafs will be in big trouble.
Sitting in the bottom six are Nazem Kadri (who could play second line centre if asked, *but he has to make the team first), Luca Caputi (who is still regarded as a bit of a project), Fredrik Sjostrom (who is more comfortable in a checking role than as a scorer), Mike Brown (checker), Christian Hanson (Checker), John Mitchell (who has already proven he is not a top-six talent and Colton Orr (who, offensively, couldn’t hit the back of the net if there was no goalie in there).
Marcel Mueller, Brayden Irwin, Dale Mitchell, Jay Rosehill, Tim Bre ...
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Article written by Mark Ritter
Toronto Maple Leafs: Thin Up Front and Tempting Disaster
August 24th, 2010 by Mark Ritter Leave a reply »
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