It's no secret that the Maple Leafs are about to enter a time period where they are up against the salary cap.
As the media has reminded us all several times, in a salary cap world where you have many star players making top dollar, it's hard to fit everyone in.
The optimal strategy (and the one that the Leafs look to be using) is paying your best players, shipping out/not retaining other peices who play lower in your lineup that want money too, and replacing them with youger talent on ELCs.
That's why Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen are here and have had their chances to succeed.
The Maple Leafs deemed in the offseason of 2018 that they could not afford to pay James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak what they were asking for, so they let them walk to free agency. That combined with the decline of Patrick Marleau and the early absence of William Nylander resulted in more minutes for the young forwards, with both of them getting lengthy opportunities in the top six and on the power play.
Both of them had breakout seasons, which is a blessing and a curse.
Their contributions were very important to the success of Toronto this season, but they now may not be able to re-sign both of them this summer, especially if they want to acquire a significant piece on the blue line (or retain one in Jake Gardiner). It may come down to the point where one of Johnsson or Kapanen is traded, and many in Leafs Nation seem undecided on who to keep. Let's check out the case for both of them and come to a conclusion on who should stay and who should go (again, if it comes to that).
The Argument for Keeping Andreas Johnsson
In my opinion, there are many good arguments for keeping each player. Here's Johnsson's case:
Argument #1: Position
One of the first arguments that you'll hear in favour of Andreas Johnsson is that he plays LW. Here's a list of the other LW's in the Maple Leafs organization:
Zach Hyman
Patrick Marleau
Trevor Moore
Mason Marchment
Micheal Carcone
Pierre Engvall
Nicholas Baptiste
Dmytro Timashov
Some of these players bounce between LW and RW (and Pierre Engvall is a centre now!) but I think you see my point. Andreas Johnsson is better than all of these players, and is significantly better than most of them. LW is not a position of strength for the organization, so why decimate an area of organizational weakness by trading your best LW? On the other hand, here are your regular RW's in the Leafs organization:
Mitch Marner
William Nylander
Kasperi Kapanen
Jeremy Bracco
Ilya Mikheyev* (likely, pending announcement)
Egor Korshkov
Tyler Ennis
Ennis is a pending UFA who likely won't be back (I think that a team who doesn't quite buy into the idea of shootinger percentage or just has a lot of cap room and needs a depth winger will offer him more than the Leafs can), but other than that this is a strong list. Mitch Marner is a superstar, William Nylander is a star player (yes, he will bounce back), Jeremy Bracco just finished 2nd in the AHL in scoring, and the organization seems to think that Mikheyev and Korshkov will play in the NHL next season.
https://twitter.com/_marlanderthews/status/1124365571657617409?s=20
Now, Mikheyev and Korshkov are listed as a RW basically everywhere, but they both shoot left, so that might open up some possiblities. Also, Nic Petan can play all three forward positions, so there's that too.
So, would you rather go into the season with a linup that could look like this:
Hyman-Tavares-Marner
Johnsson-Matthews-Nylander
Moore-Kadri-Bracco/Mikheyev/Korshkov/Petan
Marleau-Gauthier-Mikheyev/Korshkov/Petan
OR
Hyman-Tavares-Marner
Moore-Matthews-Nylander
Mikheyev-Kadri-Kapanen
Marleau-Gauthier-Petan/Korshkov
I definitley like option #1 better. Also, I did not include Bracco on the fourth line in any of these example because I just don't see the current coach doing that, but I could be wrong there. Option #1's LW depth is meh, but Option #2's LW depth is just poor. Option #1's RW depth is really good, and while Option #2's is better, I'm not sure if it's worth it.
Argument #2: Scoring
Another argument for keeping Johnsson is that stastically, Johnsson seems to be the better point scorer. Here are their stats in that regard this season:
When you factor in ice time and games played, Johnsson seems to be better at scoring goals, producing assists, and producing primary assists than Kapanen is, albiet by a slim margin. Now, you'll see that Johnsson's shooting percentage is much higher, but there is an argument that he can sustain a higher shooting percentage than average because that's all he's done throughout his career, as we can see here:
https://twitter.com/51Leafs/status/1124691723886694401?s=20
I'm not sure he'll completely sustain the same shooting percentage as he had in 2018/19, however I don't think he's going to fall off a cliff. Also, Johnsson doesn't just score more. As I mentioned he's also producing assists (specifically primary assists) at a better rate than Kapanen. Even if his shooting percentage regresses a bit, he still dominates Kapanen in terms of primary assists per 60, both at 5v5 and in all situations.
Argument #3: Deployment
I think there's definitley a case to be made that Kapanen was given more of a chance to succeed than Johnsson.
Here's the amount of ice time each of Kapanen and Johnsson got with each centre on the Leafs this year at 5v5:
Kapanen got ~169 more minutes with Matthews than Johnsson and ~247 more minutes with Kadri than Johnsson did, and while Johnsson did get~29 more minutes with Tavares, he also got 137.5 more minutes with Lindholm and ~41 more minutes with Gauthier.
Also, Kapanen started 64% of his 5v5 shifts in the offensive zone, while Johnsson 54% of his 5v5 shifts in the offensive zone.
Johnsson got way less time with star players and way more time with depth players than Kapanen did and got way less offensive zone starts, yet Johnsson outproduced him. This ties in with the last argument about scoring. Johnsson does seem to be ther better scorer as of right now.
Argument #5: On Ice Possession Stats
With Johnsson on the ice, the Maple Leafs have better puck possession stats with Johnsson on the ice than when Kapanen is on the ice, as we can see here:
I think, especially when you consider the whole linemates and offensive zone starts argument, we can see that Johnsson is the better play driver. I don't think it's neccessarily a wide gap, but these numbers indicate that Johnsson is slighty better in this part of the game.
Argument #5: Value
Another argument for keeping Andreas Johnsson over Kapanen is that Johnsson's trade value is almost definitley lower than Kapanen's. Kapanen is two years younger than Johnsson and had a pretty similar season statistically (Kapanen had one more point than Johnsson in 5 less games played) , so in a potential trade Kapanen probably has a better chance of bringing you a good young defenceman. Also, Kapanen was selected in the first round while Johnsson was selected in the seventh round, so when you combine that with the fact that Kapanen had a similar season and is two years younger, I don't think there's any chance GMs value Johnsson more.
Also, since Kapanen is percieved by many to be more valuable than Johnsson, Kapanen's contract demands could be higher, although none of that information has been leaked yet so it's more speculation there than anything.
Those last few points bring us to:
The Argument for Keeping Kasperi Kapanen
As there are for Johnsson, there are many good arguments for Kapanen, too. Here's where we start:
Argument #1: Value!!
This argument works in favour of Johnsson (as I mentioned), but it also works in the favour of Kapanen, too!! Kapanen has more trade value for a reason: he's two years younger, was a higher draft pick and he had a similar season statistically to Johnsson. That makes him more enticing to other teams, but that also makes him more enticing for the Leafs to keep.
Argument #2: Potential
There is definitely an argument to be made that Kapanen has more potential than Johnsson. We know that NHL players tend to hit their prime around 24 years old (Johnsson's age), while Kapanen is only 22. Kapanen is a much better player than Johnsson was two years ago.
I also think that Kapanen has more room to grow just because of his elite speed. If he could become a better passer, there's a lot to work with there.
He's already one of the better forwards in the league at entering the zone with control (as we can see here thanks to this viz by CJTDevil and ShutdownLine on Twitter, he is much better than Johnsson in that aspect). If he could just add more of a playmaking element in his game instead of either shooting it off the rush or stopping up and sending a pass to the point, he'd be much more of an offensive threat.
Kapanen could definitley burn you later on if he continues to take the neccessary steps to develop his playmaking, whereas it's likely that Johnsson just is what he is, or he becomes just slightly better because of his age.
Argument #3: Penalty Killing
Johnsson is a capable penalty killer too, but Kapanen's speed makes him such a scary threat when down a man. He was the Leafs' second best penalty killer (of all of their forwards this year), and that's hard to part with. Let's check out his numbers at 4v5 this season:
Here, we can see that Kapanen is second best among all regular Leaf penalty killers in CF/60, FF/60, SF/60, and third best in SCF/60. He drives offence while shorthanded better than any Leaf other than Mitch Marner (who is an absolute freak, but that's a story for another day).
Now here are his defensive numbers:
Kapanen allows the 2nd least CA/60, FA/60, and the 3rd least SA/60 and SCA/60 on the team. He and Connor Brown and the 2nd and 3rd best penalty killers on Toronto when it comes to defence (I feel like they're pretty interchangeable in this aspect).
Second best offensively and 2nd or 3rd best defensively = good.
Johnsson did not play enough penalty kill this season so we can't really compare the two here, but this is an aspect of Kapanen's game that will be missed if he is moved.
Conclusion
It's very tough to decide between the two, but here are my thoughts.
Johnsson is the better player right now, although not by a very large margin. He drives play a bit better, he scores at a slightly higher rater, and he did this while getting a worse opportunity in terms of linemates and offensive zone starts. Also, Johnsson plays a position of need, while Kapanen plays a position of strength.
That being said, Kapanen has a lot of intruiging tools. Obviously, his speed is elite, and that is a major weapon. Also, we know that he is a beast in the neutral zone. I think his main issue is his vision, and if he can fix that up, he has a lot of potential. However, is it possible to just *teach* somebody how to have good vision? I'm not sure that it is.
I think you'll get a better return for Kapanen, so trading him probably makes the most sense. That being said, if a team is offering you the same offer/value for Johnsson or is even offering you more for Johnsson than they are for Kapanen , you trade Johnsson because Kapanen is close to as good as he is and Kapanen is two years younger.
All stats in this peice where retrieved from Natural Stat Trick as of April 5th, 2019