Brandon Carlo didn’t sound like a former Maple Leafs player settling old scores this week. On “The Cam & Strick Podcast,” the defenseman actually came away with praise for Toronto’s leadership group, and that’s the kind of detail that tends to stick when a former Leaf starts talking.
Carlo said the responsibility inside the room wasn’t all sitting on one set of shoulders. “I think it was more delegated throughout the group, but there were definitely some voices...
I felt like Jake McCabe was very well respected within that room and would speak up quite a bit. Morgan Rielly as well.
I think he’s one of those guys. And Auston, It’s more so just when he does say something, everybody listens.
It’s not like he’s gonna be harping on you every single time, but when he does speak up, you know, the whole room’s gonna listen. He’s your captain, amazing player, amazing person, and he’s definitely one of those guys.”
That comment about McCabe stands out the most. Rielly and Auston Matthews are the obvious names in a conversation like this, but Carlo putting McCabe in that mix says plenty about how he saw the room operate.
For Toronto, it’s another reminder that leadership inside the team doesn’t always look the way outsiders expect. Carlo’s own time with the Leafs was short, and it will be remembered more for the deal that brought him in - Fraser Minten and a first-round pick going the other way - than for any long run in blue and white. At the time, the move made sense on paper: a big, dependable defenseman who could help in the playoffs.
It didn’t work out that way. Injuries, uneven play and no real postseason payoff turned the move into a bust, especially after Toronto again fell short against Florida.
Still, Carlo’s read on the room was a positive one, and that matters in a place where every former Leaf gets asked to weigh in.
In Other News...
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For the Leafs, the bigger question is no longer whether help would be useful, but how much future value they are willing to spend to get it now. Toronto has to balance the temptation to add immediate offense against the longer-term benefit of keeping draft capital intact, and a deal like this makes that tradeoff a lot harder to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
Maple Leafs Face A Toronto Problem That Can Hurt Team Chemistry
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That matters because chemistry is rarely built only in the locker room. When players are spread across a sprawling city and fighting the daily commute, those extra chances to bond can disappear fast, which is why the Maple Leafs may need to be more intentional about creating team time during the season. Organized group activities would not solve every issue, but in a market this demanding, anything that helps the group feel connected could carry real value once the games tighten up. [Read more 🡒]
Maple Leafs May Regret Passing On A Low-Cost Scoring Fix
With training camp approaching, the Maple Leafs are still trying to sort out a roster that can provide enough depth scoring without pushing the salary cap into a corner. That has made the margins in free agency feel even thinner, especially for a team looking for inexpensive ways to add offense without sacrificing flexibility later on.
One name that passed by Toronto was Eeli Tolvanen, who settled on a one-year deal with the Rangers. He is the kind of low-cost swing the Leafs could use more often, and the same goes for veterans such as Gustav Nyquist and Jonathan Drouin, both of whom fit the profile of players willing to take show-me deals. For a club searching for answers beyond its top scorers, those shorter-term bets might be the kind of move that looks obvious only after the fact. [Read more 🡒]