The quick answer to the title: taller. Beyond that, the Toronto Maple Leafs will have some interesting choices to make. The team is 14 games in and one of the surprises thus far has been the emergence of Conor Timmins as a viable third pairing option. In contrast, one of the disappointments has been that Simon Benoit has seemingly taken a step back. Now when you also consider the Maple Leafs have Philippe Myers and Matt Benning to consider, there will certainly be a shakeup when Jani Hakanpaa joins the Maple Leafs.
The easy bit of speculation that will be sorted out is probably the likely demotions to the AHL for either one or both of Myers and Benning. Both require waivers. Both have the possibility of being claimed, but with Dewar returning at the same time as Hakanpaa, both of them are unlikely to factor into the blueline battle unless Craig Berube and Brad Treliving place more value on them than Benoit at this point. Given that the Leafs would have an excessive number of depth right-shot defencemen, Benoit and his left shot are likely safe.
What seems most likely, at least at first, is that there will be a rotation between Benoit, Timmins, and Hakanpaa on who will be sitting. When Hakanpaa is the odd player out, it seems obvious enough that the present status quo will be maintained. Similarly, when Timmins is sitting it is easy enough to just toss Hakanpaa onto the bottom pairing with Benoit and the lefty/righty balance continues to be maintained. Where it gets interesting is when you look at what happens when Benoit sits, and the Maple Leafs have to either play two right-handed defencemen together or rework the pairings beyond just putting Hakanpaa and Timmins together. That’s where looking at the numbers helps a little:
With 14 games played, things are okay-ish for the Benoit-Timmins pairing. They haven’t been allowing goals against, which is the main thing you want from a bottom pairing, but the unbalanced differentials and higher than the rest of the Corsi against and expected goals against, along with the higher PDO (prevalent with all current pairings) points to the possibility of things going worse. The eye test has also not been kind to Benoit. Taking out Benoit and seeing what Hakanpaa can do on his wrong side is the easy answer and one that doesn’t rock the boat too much.
At the same time, McCabe-Tanev has looked like the dream pairing of the past twenty years for the Maple Leafs. It’s not going to be changed out of anything other than necessity.
Rielly and Ekman-Larsson is yielding results similar to Rielly and Tanev and that might warrant a bit of tinkering. Given that Rielly has done well with stay at home types like Luke Schenn before, perhaps Hakanpaa is seen as the fit there and instead it will be Ekman-Larsson playing with either Benoit or Timmins, with the two of them rotating in and out of the lineup. After all, Ekman-Larsson is capable on either side and adjusting him down to third-pairing competition might also be in his best interest.
Early in the season Ekman-Larsson has played 19 minutes with Timmins and 7 minutes with Benoit. The results with Timmins don’t look promising and there should be no attempt to glean anything from the seven minutes with Benoit, even if the numbers look encouraging. None of this really matters if Craig Berube thinks that Hakanpaa is the best fit for Morgan Rielly.
From years of watching Morgan Rielly it seems inevitable that Jani Hakanpaa will eventually get a spin on that pairing. It just seems premature as no one is confident about what Toronto has with Hakanpaa yet. So the path forward initially will probably be the third defender rotation of Benoit, Timmins, and Hakanpaa on the bottom pairing and results will dictate what comes next for the always interesting Maple Leafs blueline.
