To play devil's advocate, it's game 1. I didn't think any of Montreal's top guys looked that effective either. And by today's metric McKenna is a bust, so I'd rather wait before making any sweeping takeaways. Except other than maybe that Marchenko is really fun to watch.
It is not a sweeping takeaway from game 1. Issues like this were raised when they signed him.
There are a number of warts in his game. He displayed some in this game.
I don't want to pound them. He's our dman. They got him for a reason. We need his help.
He comes with a hefty price tag. He kind of hit the lottery going from near NHL minimum to 8 yrs x $8.5 mil.
The Leafs overpaid but they did not have a lot of options: Matthews has to make a big decision and the team finished 28th. There were not a lot of UFA options - which probably factored into them keeping Rielly as well.
For his longevity in Toronto, I'm just trying to reign in the top 2 stuff - trying to get the expectations down some to help him survive and prosper. He deserves some respect because he's come a long, long way. He was a forward who couldn't skate and at age 16 or so and moved to defense. Bad skating still meant no draft and no contract. But he used his forward skills to rack up points in the OHL. He applied them in the AHL and finally got a NHL deal at age 22? He continued to work at his game in the AHL - particularly the skating and eventually made it to the NHL as a regular at age 27.
Stecher is a 5-6-7 dman. He's made $13.8 mil in the NHL at age 32. Raddysh has made $2.92 mil in the NHL at age 30. So to me, some of the $8.5 mil/yr is compensation/reward for him finally persevering and making it. He was on a two way deal in the AHL so he wasn't making tons of AHL money there. He cleared waivers twice.
First thing you have to get used to is he isn't fast. It is probably between him and Joshua as to who is the slowest on the Leafs. In his 3 regular seasons in Tampa, he was between 6th and 11th in hits/60, blocks/60 and takeaways/60. But that is probably due to his limited mobility. His positioning has to be conservative because he can't get back quickly enough. It does present itself with problems in his gaps. He also makes gaffes like the grenade he tossed from his red line to the middle of the Leafs d-zone last night. His TOI/game was 4th among Tbay dmen in 2023-24, 5th in 2024-25 and 1st in 2025-26. He became 1st in 2025-26 because Hedman went down. Getting Hedman's ice time and PP time, he exploded for 22 goals and 70 points - in spite of all those warts. And he cashed in.
I think he's roughly a #1 offensive dman and a #4/5 defensive dman. He's only played 251 NHL games - hundreds less than any of the Leafs other top 6.
BUT before wringing your hands too much, his advanced stats look pretty good. Stats like Relative Expected Goals For or Corsi for example. So he's found a way (Or Tampa found a way or both) to play effectively overall around the warts.
So I'm just trying to keep the expectations down as it will probably take the Leafs & Raddysh some time to work this out. But I am pulling for him.
If you think I got that all from game 1, I don't know what else to say ...
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