One painfully obvious conclusion I think you can come to after Saturday nights loss to the Rangers is, the Leafs forward group needs a lot of work.
This group is dreadful down the middle. Grabovski is the teams strongest pivot, and after that, I'm not sure this team has the horses to compete on a nightly basis. If Dave Nonis is paying attention to what the Leafs real need is, it's a big, even modestly physical 1st or even 2nd line center.
Joe Colborne was supposed to be that guy. Now it's looking like he might not ever live up to those expectations.
And options are limited, if you're looking outside of the organization. Teams simply do not part with these types of players very often. Ryan Getzlaf is slated to hit the open market this summer. But I doubt he makes it that far.
It looks like if Nonis has any chance of addressing this need, his best bet is by picking top five at this coming entry draft. Maybe this is the right year to grab that big name center in the top of the leagues draft order. Either Nate MacKinnon, Sasha Barkov or, Sean Monahan would be exactly what the Leafs should be looking for.
But even then, there's still no guarantees.
