Opinion Leafs mailbag: Luke Schenn finally gets his playoff shot ...

With Luke Schenn, Erik Gustafsson and Jake McCabe added to the mix, the Maple Leafs have used 15 different defencemen this season.

That’s usually a number associated with a team struggling through a season, not a team that is listed as one of the betting favourites to win the Stanley Cup.

The blue line is stronger than it was. McCabe seems to be a younger (and cheaper) Jake Muzzin-type, playing with some snarl but able to add offence. Gustafsson seems like a more mature version of Rasmus Sandin.

But of the all the trade acquisitions, it feels good to see Schenn back where it all started. He never got close to the playoffs after the team drafted him fifth overall in 2008. Now he’ll get a chance to see what it feels like.

Back then — after Mats Sundin left — it felt like the Leafs were going to take a step back. They drafted Schenn, followed by Nazem Kadri in 2009. The prospects cupboard was otherwise bare. If done right, the Leafs might have been able to build on the next couple of drafts.

But then-GM Brian Burke was impatient, traded the next two first-rounders (and a second) for Phil Kessel that turned the team into a decent, but never great, team. Futility followed. The trade of Schenn — one day after the Leafs drafted Morgan Rielly — in 2012, was all part of that futile chase.

It did net the Leafs James van Riemsdyk — a terrific scorer —from the Philadelphia Flyers while Schenn’s star never rose to the level expected of a fifth-overall pick. He’s had more of journeyman’s career. Flyers to the Arizona Coyotes to the Anaheim Ducks to the Vancouver Canucks to the Tampa Bay Lightning, back to the Canucks and then back to the Leafs.

Two Stanley Cup rings later, though, Schenn is comfortable as that physical shut-down defenceman who is also occasionally scratched.

As always, if you have a question, email me at askkevinmcgran@gmail.com and I’ll answer it in next week’s Mailbag. It’s been an interesting week, and given the Mailbag is published online Friday morning, not over yet. Your questions this week barely kept pace with all the trades. As multiple updater Colin B put it: “Holy s@%*!!”

I’ll do my best to the update/relevant ones and keep the “Why not trade Pierre Engvall?” kind of questions to myself.

Here we go:

What’s with Dubas’ new approach?

QUESTION: I feel like I have asked as many questions as there have been Leafs trades this week...A LOT!

Kyle Dubas built a team that has been overflowing with skill but very little jam. For years he resisted, and seemingly ignored all the critics (myself included) questioning this strategy. What does it say that the very lineup he stated he was happy with three weeks ago has now been drastically altered with the addition of a lot of players with jam in their game while subtracting players who lack it? How should this about face be viewed beyond this (immediate) playoff run when it comes to re-signing him? I like the trades a lot, but I’m confused with all of the accolades he’s been receiving (for the recent trade acquisitions) given he is doing what most of us thought he should have done years ago before all of those first-round exits...

All that being said, onward and upward, GO LEAFS GO!! Thanks as always,

Bill L

ANSWER: To me they look like Brendan Shanahan trades. No question Dubas’s drafting and developing strategy puts hockey sense and skill above all. In my opinion, the use of analytics ensures a team’s regular-season success. But facing Tampa? Sandin isn’t getting in that lineup. He can’t handle a heavy forecheck (at this point in his career). Engvall was awful last year (great regular-season analytics, terrible analytics vs. Tampa). They brought in players that can handle it.

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Leafs-Lightning and the goalies

QUESTION: Kevin, do you share my sinking feeling that, despite the best efforts of the Leafs top-six forwards and the anticipated improvements to the bottom-six and the overall defensive play, the first-round will go to Tampa as a result of their superior goaltending?

Gary A

ANSWER: Yes I do. It will all come down to goaltending.

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QUESTION: It seem like the Leafs could benefit from another great goalie. Ilya Samsonov can’t carry it all. What do you think?

Cindy, California

ANSWER: I agree totally. The Leafs seem to think Matt Murray is the answer. They better be right. I’m not convinced. That said, I have a fair bit of faith in Joseph Woll. Not necessarily to carry them in the playoffs, but to be a meaningful contributor for the next few seasons.

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QUESTION: Hey Kev. When the Leafs are rushing back on defence and Mitch Marner is trailing, I’ll see him stretch his stick out to lightly hook his own teammate from behind. It’s been going on for awhile but I don’t understand it. Is he trying to catch a ride? Give his teammate a push for speed? Have you seen it? What do you think he’s doing? Thanks!

Stacey M

ANSWER: Good eyes. It’s not a hook, though, it’s a push. He does it all the time if he thinks a teammate could use it. I’m surprised more players don’t do it. But he “thinks” the game at a whole different level.

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QUESTION: Hey Kevin. For the past five years every hockey writer on this planet has said roughly the same thing. “The Leafs are a great regular-season team, but don’t have the grit and toughness to grind through the playoffs.” Every year they were proven right and every year Leafs management said: “Oh no, the game has changed, it’s all about speed, not grit or physical toughness.” And the next year they would lose again. So now, Dubas has seen the light, his own road to Damascus experience and executed a series of trades that I personally think are brilliant and add exactly what the Leafs need. If they lose, it won’t be, because they lack toughness and grit. So here is my question: Why on earth did it take Leafs management five years to figure out what every other hockey analyst on this earth realized? That they needed to be exactly the time of team that Dubas has just now created.

Christopher W

ANSWER: The cynical answer is that all free agents have their best year when they’re playing for a contract. Dubas’s contract expires July 1.

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What is Justin Holl’s future?

QUESTION: Can you please explain why Justin Holl is still a Leaf? Is it because no one else wants him?

David M

ANSWER: Sure, set me up to defend him then watch him get traded a 2:59 and we’ll both look like idiots. I’m not as down on Holl as the rest of you are, and with the trades just made, Holl promises to play further down the lineup, meaning protected minutes where he may thrive a bit more. Holl had a bad stretch last season, and his reputation seems not to have recovered, though I think his game has. He’s big, right-handed, and can skate really well. He’s an unrestricted free agent this summer. We’ll see who else wants him. If tradition holds, it will be the Oilers. (The Leafs have quite neatly replaced him with McCabe and have the makings of a quite affordable blue line next year.)

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QUESTION: Hi Kevin. Thanks for your observations in 13 Musings about the ‘atmosphere’ at Scotiabank Arena. I go to a couple of games a year and while I can refuse to pay extortionate prices for concessions, it’s impossible to ignore the pounding music and the incessant pleas to make noise. Otherwise I’d probably go to more. Keep fighting the good fight!

Allan H

ANSWER: I thought Shanahan was going to change all this. He started, but things crept back.

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QUESTION: I totally agree with Musing No. 10 on Feb. 28. There was so much noise, so many interruptions by hosts yelling into the mic with weird contests, so many ice cleanings by more hosts ring commercial breaks, so much organ music and so many unintelligible announcements that the game hardly mattered. It was awful and I won’t go to another one. Thanks for your comment.

Jeff R

ANSWER: I don’t blame you.

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