Leafs make SNEAKY good signing... This is GREAT | Toronto Maple Leafs News

Here's some big news to go over today as the Toronto Maple Leafs have made another sneaky good signing. And if Brad Shuleving continues to make moves, he has made yet another sneaky good move that has fans very intrigued. We're going to break down this player and discuss what it means going forward. But not only that, we do have some more updates to go over as the Leafs season is slowly but surely coming to an end. And fans continue to be pretty upset with the way that Brad Shuleving and Craig Brube have handled things, despite the fact that Brad is pulling off some decent moves. A ton to go over on this episode, but before we get into it, a very quick reminder folks to hit that subscribe button. You guys have been absolutely fantastic with the support. There's a lot to go over today here, and they made another move. Yesterday we obviously covered one signing, and then Brad comes out and makes another one. And again, make sure to hit that subscribe button. Let's dive right into it. So they've signed Brandon Burr to a one-year contract. He's going to finish this season with the Marlies, and then of course next year we'll be able to do whatever the Leafs want to do with him. But, Darius, this time it's not a defenseman, it's a forward, and the Leafs continue their strategy, I guess, of signing some pretty good prospects under the radar. These are guys who have big potential, and Brandon Burr is yet another one of those players coming off of a career year with Union College and the ECAC, finishing with 36 points good for a bit over a point a game. Darius, 23-year-old here from St. John, British Columbia. Interesting name, and once again, a pretty good sneaky signing here for this Leafs team. Yeah, another good sneaky signing for the team, and I want to give credit to a couple people including Chris Bourque, who's head of scouting out of the NCAA for the Toronto Maple Leafs. So obviously this is his work the last couple days, and a lot of people are speaking out about how these are really good signings for the Leafs. The one that they made yesterday, we'll get to that in a little bit too, rehash that a little bit, but a lot of people are big fans of that. Obviously this one with Burr, a lot of people are big fans of this move as well. He's a 6'2 scoring winger that, you know, welcome back Bobby McMahon, a younger Bobby McMahon at this point, that's how I saw some people describe him, but a lot of people including Stephen Ellis are saying that he should be a good pro hockey player. Now what does that mean? It doesn't necessarily mean he's going to make the Leafs, but he could. He could be a scoring, you know, winger on a checking line, something like that. He could add some offense to there, and not just that, the Leafs need more players in their system like we've seen this year with Bo Guru, for example, too late in the season probably, but I think they need more players like this that are going to go to the Marlies, continue their development. He's a little bit older than a prospect as well, he's in his 20s already, most of these guys are, but he was ranked very highly, I think he was fourth on the list in terms of NCAA free agents this, you know, offseason or heading into the offseason, and the Leafs picked up Luke Hames last year that was highly ranked as well, and you know, he started slow, but now he's certainly picked it up. He looks really good, so they need more of those guys that if they do have injuries on the main team to the Maple Leafs, they can call people like this up, and they can contribute in some way, so they need more players like that because that was a big problem around couldn't really call anyone up and have any substance out of that, so that's a big issue as well, so I like the signing again, young, high upside, can score, big body, big frame, I like it. Yeah, and obviously, excuse me, he is another man who's a leader on his respective team, you can see there he has the assistant captain on his jersey, and let's dive into some of the prospect guys, so one of my top college free agents alongside Borghesi, that's two to the Leafs organization, Burr is a physical forward, patrols play well and quick to take advantage of loose pucks, should be a very well-rounded addition, so we've went under weight now in the past 24 hours, two signings where guys like Foley and guys who are more privy to prospects like this rather than some of the highly, highly touted, of course, guys in the first round of the draft and all those, they are heavily praising the Toronto Maple Leafs here, and I'm not going to pretend to know a lot about every single prospect, obviously I do a research for the videos, he is an exciting one, and we can look at his stats again, and these aren't quite as, obviously a bit of a smaller sample size in general, not quite as good as some of the NHL, like Jay Fresh charts and things like that, but it is still very important, you can see here, really good goal score, at least where he currently plays, you can see physical, I mean, he draws more penalties than he takes, and he also throws hits more than he gets hit, which is always a good sign, and of course we're talking about Bradshaw living and reports coming out that they want to change the dynamic of the team, not saying that Brennan Burr is going to be that guy, but players that have similar kind of intangibles and tangibles to him, physical, and throw the body around, it's very, very intriguing, and keep in mind, he is only 23 years old, but he's six foot two, who's also pretty good with the puck, so these aren't guys you can find very often, and that's why these, that's why the Leafs are going out and getting it done now, you can see here, coming off of a great year at Union, always pressuring guys in and making mistakes, could see him becoming a checking line NHL-er, could be, at 23 years old, in the next couple of years, potentially a bottom six option here, especially as some of the other guys start to fizzle out, guys' contracts start to, you know, go up, Stephen Lawrence is going up pretty soon, Max Domi, all these guys, I'm not saying that Brennan Burr is on the same stratosphere as them, yet, but you have to take into account these things, and obviously, these moves had to be paired with actual NHL-ers in the upcoming offseason to matter, but it is still pretty, pretty exciting, and especially with all the praise he's been getting, specifically both signings Brad Shillings made yesterday and today. Yeah, and you can see this from Stephen Ellis, that he may end up in the NHL at some point being a checking line scorer, which is great, you need that in the NHL, right, and that's the reason why you don't sign a guy like Bobby McMahon to a five-year contract or a six-year contract at 30 years old for $5 million, that's the reason, because you can find some guys like this that, in maybe a couple years' time, can offer you the same amount of minutes, and, you know, the production from McMahon, again, I'm just making a direct comparison, it doesn't have to be that, but, you know, maybe it was a little bit higher than we might see from some of these guys, but they can still offer something of the same, so I like the signing, a lot of people seem to as well, him and Borghesi, you know, both of them were guys that were highly ranked on a lot of lists, a lot of other teams wanted one of them, similarly to Luke Hames last year, and they end up on the Leafs and within the Leafs organization, so pretty good work there, and again, credit to Chris Bork, who's head of scouting there for the NCAA, so pretty, pretty tidy work, but, yeah, I think the Leafs are in better hands now, in terms of, you know, restocking the cupboard in whatever way that they possibly can, obviously don't have the draft picks, the draft pick situation's not great, but you can still find some good talent in the NCAA with some of these guys, they're a little bit older, right, and their ceilings are probably not as high, but you still need players like this that you can call up to make an impact, right, so, I feel like Luke Hames, for example, will play a part, is he gonna be, like, a super impactful forward in the NHL? We don't know, I feel like there is high upsides there still, but I feel like you still need guys that can come in and be able to fill in when there is injuries, any organization needs that, and the best teams are able to do that as well, so, I think that's a big thing. And it is funny that we're talking about this now, and you can see here, another model for Vincent Borghesi, some, obviously, there's no, we're not gonna know, until, like you mentioned, until they actually get in games, what impact any of these guys are gonna have, but his card from 2024-2025, which is on your screen now, is very promising, we'll get a new one soon, 2025-2026 model, so, a lot of interesting things happen, but since we're talking about, you know, the Leafs' prospect signings instead of the actual games, because of how bad they have been playing, so, yeah, they go 2-for-2 on signings, really excited to see Burr and Borghesi, one other thing, as well, is an interesting report from Elliot Freeman, that has recently come out, and he said, and I kind of just want to pivot this before I wrap up, a lot has happened in a very short time, sometime over the next couple months, we're gonna get a better idea about how everybody feels about the overall future of Matthews and the Maple Leafs, we're gonna have a full video covering Matthews' future soon with yours, I just want to kind of get your thoughts, not necessarily on the Matthews thing, but on the first part of this, tons of things have happened over the past 48-72 hours for this team, we might be looking back at this date, in mid-March, in a few months' time here, and wonder if this was the time, ever since that Matthews hit, that things actually started changing in this organization, if we ever get back to the promised land of maybe having a good off-season and then a playoff run. Yeah, the last week has been crazy, right, so let us know in the comments how you feel about everything, because my fear right now, I just want to throw it out there, that, you know, based on everything we've heard from the organization, not really the organization, but about the organization from different media members, I'm very scared right now that the team is gonna go, the players are not listening to the coach, and the GM needs an extra year, please give me another year, they're gonna be able to save their jobs, they're gonna come back, and then we're just gonna run it back, right? There's issues at every single level with this organization right now, and not just this year, forever, like a lot of people talking about, you know, Mitch Marner, everyone thought the Leafs were gonna be better off without him, yeah, if you had traded him, and got him, which they did, but different situation a couple years ago, and got like a number one defenseman for him, or something like that, of equal value, or something close in that range, right, that you can fill the team with, and they didn't do that, they got Nick Waugh, which turned into a first-round pick, which probably won't be, you know, be like the 30th pick next year, or something like that, so my fear is that they're not gonna make as many changes as they possibly should, there's gonna be a lot of finger-pointing, I'm very excited to see what comes from the exit interviews, and what certain players are saying, I know Elliot Friedman's gonna have a lot to say about that at the time, but those are poised to be explosive, and I, you know, at this point I'm just waiting for that, Nick, I mean, the games don't matter, we'll see what happens with the draft lottery, but that's where this team's at, they need a change, I also think that starting a complete rebuild and bringing in a bunch of head-smashers is not the way you should go either, you wanna keep some skill on the team, trading Austin Matthews at this point I think would be a mistake right now, we can revisit it probably in the future, maybe next summer, something like that, but that's my fear, that everyone's trying to, you know, finger-point, save their job, and nothing actually does get done. Yeah, you can see, standings, looking bad, the season is pretty much over, and now we look ahead to the future, but let us know down below what your thoughts are on that, what your thoughts are on the future of the team, and of course, the recent two signings for this Leafs squad.