As the NHL season inches closer there is a trend towards making sure that every NHL is neatly ranked. Sportsnet and TSN have embarked on similar endeavors, but The Athletic has opted for a more reasonable approach of putting their top 150 players into tiers rather than specific numbers which is bound to generate further debate. (How dare Nylander be 8th and Marner 11th.)
The approach will still likely spark some debate as there is still a pecking order to it and of course, since it’s a 150-player list, there are plenty of Leafs on it. Since this post will spoil the Leafs rankings, I’ll encourage you to go and check out the reasoning for those placements on The Athletic’s site, and instead here you’ll just get my interpretation of whether the placement is fair or not.
Top Tier- Auston Matthews- MVP
The MVP category is by far the smallest and other than the inclusion of Connor McDavid as one of Auston Matthews’ peers in that group, I’ll leave you to check out the rest of the names there.
Matthews’ as a near 70-goal scorer who is a capable two-way player and former Hart Trophy winner is deserving of this accolade and when he gets the call to the Hall of Fame at the end of his career he’ll likely be remembered as a generational talent from his first game in the NHL up until his last.
He might not yet be the greatest Leaf, but I’m not sure you can seriously suggest that there has ever been a more talented or skilled Leafs skater in franchise history.
Second Tier- Mitch Marner and William Nylander- Franchise Players
The letter grade that accompanies the tier gives the slight edge to Mitch Marner over William Nylander which might be the first taste of Leafs controversy on this list.
Nylander’s back-to-back 40-goal seasons and stronger playoff showings have earned him a ton of respect, while the undetermined outcome of Mitch Marner’s next contract and the unfavourable playoff results from him may have you looking at things the other way around.
From my perspective, I’d say it’s just nice that the Leafs have two wingers that can be looked at as Top-30 in the NHL type players and I can see how Marner’s defensive responsibility and regular season consistency could influence rankers more than Nylander’s puck carrying ability and goal scoring acumen.
Fourth Tier- Morgan Rielly and John Tavares- Star
The Leafs didn’t have anyone at the third tier (All-Star) but Morgan Rielly crept into the star ranking, along with John Tavares.
Tavares is still a player that a lot of teams would happily put on their first line and that is probably something that needs to be remembered while we often debate whether he is now a 3C or potentially a winger. He might have his shortcomings, but the good still heavily outweighs the bad.
The good outweighing the bad also holds true for Morgan Rielly who might be a bit positionally challenged in his own end and lack a booming point shot, but has more than made up the difference through zone exits and being a sound 5v5 generator of offence for the Leafs with great consistency.
Throw in the fact that both of these players have been strong leaders for the Leafs and calling them stars is more than fair.
Fifth Tier- Chris Tanev- Support
Tanev rounds out the list of Leafs and certainly offers some optimism that this is a strong group. If you are putting together a list of top 150 players in the NHL, the law of averages says that every team should have 4 or 5 guys on here. The Leafs have 6 thanks to Tanev, and by definition means they are probably in a good place, at least in the eyes of The Athletic.
Tanev is the yin to Rielly’s yang. All of the positional shortcomings in Rielly are addressed in Tanev’s game. While Rielly makes offensively driven decisions, Tanev focuses on the safe play. The fact that both of them fill their role almost equally well is a good reason for having some optimism about the Leafs heading into the year.
We are yet to see what Tanev will do in Toronto but on paper this is encouraging.
I’d certainly suggest checking out the rest of the top-150 players as ranked by The Athletic. The placement of other notable NHLers will certainly add some context beyond what I’ve shared here.
