The Maple Leafs may have gotten a bit younger with Gavin McKenna and Emil Andrae but still hold an average age of approximately 30 years old.
Toronto added some youth this offseason with the additions of Emil Andrae and Gavin McKenna but also brought in a 38-year-old Sergei Bobrovsky, Teddy Blueger and Colton Sissons who are 32 and soon-to-be 33 respectively, and didn't surround their veterans with a ton of younger talent.
The bulk the minutes are still going to be given to the team's veterans and it'll be up to older players like John Tavares, Chris Tanev, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to endure a heavy workload as Toronto transitions into a younger era.
Toronto's average age of 29.9 shows how much they still value their veteran talent
The top-six is really going to only get younger if the Maple Leafs insert Gavin McKenna in there and that's not a guarantee to start the year. You've got Auston Matthews (28), William Nylander (30), John Tavares (35), Jack Roslovic (29), Matthew Knies (24) and Nick Paul (31) as your potential top-six, and besides Knies - everyone is going to be or already 30 and over.
Toronto doesn't have that much youth at all actually. Besides McKenna (18), Andrae (24), Knies (24), Easton Cowan (21), and Jacob Quillan (24) the team doesn't have much in the way of young talent - with their average age being 29.9.
Adding McKenna, Knies and Cowan to the top-six adds your young guns but it still gives way to players like John Tavares averaging a lot more ice-time.
Then you're asking a lot from the defensive side too as Tanev (36), Ekman-Larsson (35), Jake McCabe (33), Morgan Rielly (32), and Troy Stecher (32) are all over 30 and the majority of the blueline.
The Maple Leafs can't afford to have their older defenders be unable to handle the workload and pace and it may bring their durability into question especially when it comes to Tanev woh is coming off an injury-filled season.
The real youth movement is in the pipeline not the NHL core
Toronto is not a young group right now, but they did their best to ensure the next generation of players have the youth and experience necessary to succeed.
The prospect pipeline currently has names like Tinus Luc Koblar (19), Ben Danford (20), Victor Johansson (20), Ethan MacKenzie (19), and Zac Olsen (18) meanwhile names like Harry Nansi (18) and Tyler Hopkins (19) remain unsigned but are likely still a part of the team's future.
Danford is getting ready for his first full pro season with the Marlies, Koblar is ready to face tougher competition in Sweden, meanwhile the others are likely going to be fighting for Maple Leafs lineup spots in the future, though not until much later on.
In a few years we could see a big overhaul of the lineup where the veterans like Tanev, Tavares, and Ekman-Larsson are replaced by Danford, Koblar, and Johansson which adds a ton of youth behind a still young Gavin McKenna and Easton Cowan as foundational building blocks of the new era.
While the Maple Leafs currently have one of the older rosters in all of hockey, they could get significantly younger in the next few years. That doesn't automatically guarantee success, it does allow the team to keep competitive in the modern NHL where things happen much quicker - necessitating the need for faster, younger players.
Not every rookie is going to make it, but even if the Maple Leafs can add a few younger bodies in the lineup then with their veterans like Nylander and eventually Matthew Knies - they could become a faster, more energetic unit.
The current iteration of the Maple Leafs are older, but hold the experience and veteran leadership to win-now and the team has set their future up to succeed them once that window closes and a new one begins to open.
Do you think that the Maple Leafs need to get younger?
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