Toronto Maple Leafs: The Short List of Improving Marlies

The 2018 Calder Cup winning Toronto Marlies are off to a rough 6-7-3 start this season. Which players are exceeding expectations, so far?

Following the loss of goalies Calvin Pickard and Curtis McElhinney to waivers and Garret Sparks‘ call-up to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Marlies just haven’t been the same team.

Instead of the top-tier goaltending seen last season, the first 16 games have been played between Eamon McAdam, Jeff Glass, and Kasimir Kaskisuo. So far, these three have struggled to say the least. They have a combined .865 save percentage. The Marlies have allowed 67 goals over these games. This is an average of 4.19 GA/game.

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Despite their goaltending struggles, the Marlies’ goalscoring is as good as ever. They have 65 goals, for a 4.06 goals per game average. This puts them on pace for 309 goals over the entire season. This is 55 more goals than they scored last season.

In fact, they’re tied with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms for the most goals in the league. Clearly, the Marlies have talent. With better goaltending, they would still be one of the best teams in the AHL. Who have been the best players on the team, so far?

Chris Mueller

Chris Mueller has jumped around the AHL over the past five seasons or so. He has played with the Hartford Wolf Pack, the San Diego Gulls, the Tucson Roadrunners, and earlier, the Texas Stars. Previously, he has even seen time with the Grand Rapids Griffins, Lake Erie Monsters and Milwaukee Admirals. At 32 years old, he has played with eight different AHL teams.

In all this time, he has only appeared in 53 NHL games scoring three goals and seven assists for 10 points. The amount of times that he’s jumped from team to team in the AHL without seeing much NHL time is pretty incredible.

Anyways, it makes sense why he has secured so many opportunities in the league. He has recorded at least 40 and up to 67 points over the past 5 seasons. This season, he has eight goals and eight assists for 16 points in 14 games played. This puts him on pace for a career high in points.

Calle Rosen

Probably most excitingly, defenseman Calle Rosen looks to be improving rapidly on the Marlies. For those of you with very, very short-term memories, he was signed during the offseason of 2017 along with Andreas Borgman.

He only appeared in 4 games recording 1 assist. On the Marlies, people were hoping that he or Borgman could quickly develop into the NHL defensemen they were expected to be. On offense at least, his results were underwhelming. He had 4 goals and 18 assists for 22 points in 62 games. This season, however, he is already seeing dramatic improvement.

I don’t know what’s going on with him, but he has two goals and 13 assists for 15 points in 16 games played. In the case of an injury, Rosen might be the first one to go to. His rival, Borgman, has been succeeding too, however, with 10 points.

Trevor Moore

Last up is Trevor Moore. Some were actually expecting him to debut against the Sharks on Friday, but he still remains to play his first NHL game. He was signed by the Leafs in 2016 as an undrafted free agent, having played before with the University of Denver.

Moore has been decent in his first two AHL seasons, but he has seen real success early on. His previous 33 point career high is set to be dashed, already with 9 goals and 3 assists for 12 points in 13 games.

Only 23 years old, Moore has a very bright future ahead of him. Hopefully, some of this future will be played out on the Leafs in the near future.

Conclusion

Despite the Marlies’ struggles early on, they are scoring at an incredible rate. Don’t let the poor goaltending trick you. They still have an impressive team.