{"id":79579,"date":"2025-08-19T09:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T09:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/79579\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T09:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T09:34:08","slug":"nhl-analyst-sounds-off-on-hidden-maple-leafs-flaw-after-mitch-marner-exit-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/79579\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL analyst sounds off on hidden Maple Leafs flaw after Mitch Marner exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NHL remains in the offseason, and while teams are looking ahead to the 2025-26 season, one NHL analyst is telling the Toronto Maple Leafs that their roster isn’t quite ready for the new campaign.<\/p>\n

Mitch Marner left this offseason to begin a new chapter with the Vegas Golden Knights. As a result, there’s a hole in Toronto’s power play regarding who will orchestrate the attack, as that was Marner’s role.<\/p>\n

All eyes point to Morgan Rielly, which will likely be the case. However, what’s behind Rielly to fill that role on the No. 2 power play or if the 31-year-old were to get injured at any point of the season?<\/p>\n

Do the Maple Leafs still need to make a move?<\/p>\n

On the latest edition of Toronto Sports Rush<\/a>, NHL analyst Pierre McGuire joined EJ Hradek to share what area of the roster Leafs general manager Brad Treliving should be focusing on ahead of the new season.<\/p>\n

“I’d love to see them try to make one upgrade in terms of a puck-moving defenseman,” McGuire said. “One of the things they did this summer, they brought in Henry Thrun. I think Henry Thrun is a very useful player… Henry’s a really good puck mover, but he’s a depth puck mover. He’s not a top-four puck mover.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Rangers pitched to acquire Adam Pelech in trade with rival Islanders<\/a><\/p>\n

“I think if they ever could add one of those and take some pressure off of, let’s say, Morgan Rielly in the power play, I think that would help them. I would be trying to gauge and focus in on a power play defenseman.<\/p>\n

“Think about it: last year, they went five forwards on their first power play in Toronto, and Mitchell Marner is not there anymore. He was the guy running the power play. So, I think that would be something that I’d be looking for if I were a Brad Treliving and the Toronto Maple Leafs [is] a puck-moving, elite offensive-type defenseman.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL remains in the offseason, and while teams are looking ahead to the 2025-26 season, one NHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-79579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}