Multiple sources are repeating a Boston Globe story that the Leafs will have defender Nick Blankenburg on a PTO at camp.

Report: Maple Leafs sign defenceman Nick Blankenburg to PTO
<p>The Toronto Maple Leafs have reportedly signed defenceman Nick Blankenburg to a professional tryout contract (PTO), according to The Boston Globe&#8217;s Kevin Paul Dupont. &#8220;Undersized defenseman, ex- of UMichigan (from the Johnny Beecher days), played for both Colorado and Nashville last season,&#8221; Dupont wrote. &#8220;Small, but mobile, an insurance play by new GM John Chayka,&#8230;</p>
The Leafs NationMichael Mazzei

I wrote a blurb on Nick Blankenburg ahead of free agent day that I don't think ever saw the light of day, but my take was he is an analytics darling but there isn't much there there.

I do recall that his one good season, last season, was getting stats not from playing in Colorado like you might think, but from his prior games in Nashville. However, he had a brief and very, very, hugely uncharacteristic shooting heater in Colorado that got him two goals in only 12 games. He got buzz but not a contract.

He is 28, and is 5'9" and that matters, and it matters a lot for a defender. He's listed at 177 lbs by the NHL right now ahead of camp. This is not absolutely a killer, being actually fairly short for the NHL (instead of the way people talk about guys and inch away from six feet tall) but he needs tools and abilities that first erase that and then add up to value.

I am skeptical he has those.

He shoots very little, has very low individual expected goals because of his very low volume, and that has remained consistent over any team he's played on and any number of games.

As I'd remembered, his nice bar charts or isolation model representations of last season are all Nashville stuff while his value declined dramatically in Colorado.

His value on this chart is almost entirely offensive metrics. And they disappear in every other season.

To compare favourably to Emil Andrae, who is the same size and whose stats are intriguing because he has a bunch of puck skills, no personal shooting skill, but real offence creation from his passing, you have to believe Nashville unlocked Blankenburg's secret offensive skills that dried up and blew away in Denver. Andrae has some real defensive impacts because of his puck skills as well, and well, Blankenburg doesn't really.

Adding to the intrigue about Blankenburg, in the sense of why did he look so good on Nashville but not the Avs, he was used heavily skewed in Denver away from top lines. Maybe it was his d-partner in Nashville, usually Nick Hague, maybe it was something else about how the teams played that he just fit with, but it is odd.

He's not bad, by any means, he's fairly average and ordinary and can play third pair in an unexciting way. His defence is eh, not bad. If the Leafs are, as Daily Faceoff speculated, getting some insurance in case Chris Tanev can't play right away – he is not yet medically cleared but that could be because medicals are later this week – well, fine. PTOs are always fine. And since both preseason gamedays are split squads, they need more than 12 defenders in camp.

But I'm a no sale on the secret amazing player who just won't get a chance because he's too short. He is too short. And he's not good enough for that not to matter. He's also had a lot of chances. And Andrae? I'm intrigued, but not bought in on the full package he presents. We'll see.

Oh, and about those preseason games? The first set is Saturday. We expect the Leafs to have their first practice on Thursday, with media availability and medicals the day before.

The "rookies" played in Gatineau. If you missed the news, Gavin McKenna was present but did not play. The Sun reported that the Leafs are only able to play McKenna in two preseason games (that split-squad structure again) so they didn't want him to play here a week before the first one, and really that doesn't make sense to me. I think they just didn't want a Minten event where he ended up injured.

In game one, I thought Luke Haymes and the other top AHLers like Borya Valis and Miroslav Holinka were clearly superior to everyone else. Some of the actual prospects were trying, but this is a very hard situation to get anything going in. Harry Nansi stood out some, as did Alexander Bilecki. This was my first look at Timofei Obvintsev, who played the whole game, and he did one very bad play and otherwise seemed like a pro goalie. Which he, of course, already is. Tinus Luc Koblar tried to create offensively, but he wasn't sparkling in the way he can. Ben Danford had one of those mixed outings as well, patches of good stuff, patches of rust very visible.

Steve Sullivan's first outing as head coach involved some silly lines with Nansi as 4C and Tyler Hopkins on the wing, and that changed before the end of the game. Nansi rocketed up to Haymes' wing, and Hopkins dropped a line to 3C where he belongs. If he's not playing C, there's not much point to him, making him the rare player who isn't better on the wing.

One of the signs of an experienced coach is that they don't try things just to try them. They try things that make sense to try.

In game two the lines made sense from the start, with Nansi on the wing of the top line and Hopkins as 3C. It was a better game , and TLK looked a little more like I'd expect him to be this season. Well better until the doldrums of the third period when the Leafs guys decided to just hang out with Patriks Plumins.

The most notable takeaway from this event is actually that, on the Marlies at least, the defence is set to activated by default. There was a lot of offensive cycle participation from all the defenders. The first two goals from Sunday:

A more traditional step in and shoot defender goal:

And a more modern defender playing wing goal:

And some opportunism:

However, if the Leafs are looking to sign someone to an ELC out of this event, it should be Nansi.

This deal keeps getting discussed via the very low AAV, which is deeply misleading.

You have to figure Kreider is getting the $2 million bonus by default, and will likely get the first goals bonus, maybe all of them save the biggie. He's not going to lose a dime on what he would have earned this year on the old contract, and Montréal will not have to count all that cap hit this year, because the bonuses can roll over, but it does all count at some point.

‘A real obligation’: Maple Leafs GM John Chayka reflects on hectic off-season
Alongside senior executive adviser of hockey operations Mats Sundin, John Chayka believes the Maple Leafs have taken positive steps over the last four months coming off their first playoff-less campaign in a decade.
Sportsnet.caCanadian Press
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