Jack Roslovic headlines Toronto's bottom-six shopping spree this summer, but the Maple Leafs still haven't fixed their top-six problem.
Every forward Toronto brought in projects as depth, not scoring punch. And the numbers behind these additions don't do much to change that narrative.
Roslovic posted 21 goals and 36 points in 69 games this season, the clear standout of the group by a wide margin.
Nick Paul managed just 15 points in 51 games and finished a minus-15. Those are shutdown numbers, not top-six numbers.
Colton Sissons chipped in 11 points over 66 games with a minus-11 rating. Teddy Blueger added 17 points in only 35 games, going minus-12 along the way.
Brandon Duhaime played all 82 games and still finished with just 9 points. Zack MacEwen posted zero points in three games with the club.
Add it up. Six forwards, 88 combined points, and a cap hit of $11,932,142 tied up in players built for bottom-six minutes.
Jim Hiller inherits a goaltending mess in Toronto
Jim Hiller takes over behind Toronto's bench, and his crease picture looks nothing like it did a year ago.
The current group on file is Sergei Bobrovsky, Anthony Stolarz and Artur Akhtyamov. Joseph Woll, Samuel Ersson and Dennis Hildeby are nowhere on that list anymore.
That's a serious overhaul for a team that finished 32-36-14, good for 78 points and 28th overall in the league.
Toronto scored 253 goals and allowed 299, a minus-46 differential that shows exactly where the real damage happened.
So does spending on toughness down the lineup fix any of that? It's like buying a sturdier bumper for a car that still won't start.
That bumper might survive the next fender bender. But it does nothing until somebody deals with the engine, and right now nobody in Toronto has solved who plays alongside John Tavares and William Nylander.
That's the real hole. And depth signings, however useful in March, don't answer it in July.
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Toronto still has cap room to maneuver before training camp opens. Whether Hiller and this front office use it on a legitimate top-six piece is the question that actually decides this season.
Was loading up on bottom-six depth the right move for the Maple Leafs this summer?
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