David Kampf needs a rebound season for the Maple Leafs

The 2023-24 season wasn’t as kind to David Kampf as the off-season was. Kampf’s 4-year contract paying him $2.4M per season and including a 10-team no trade clause was a bit of a surprise. It also seemed to be Brad Treliving acting on those familiar with Kampf saying that he was closer to a 3rd line centre in capabilities than a 4th line centre. Improvement on 2022-23 or at least consistency with it was expected, and that certainly didn’t occur as Kampf took a step back.

The step back creates a bit of a difficult situation for the Leafs in that with the right linemates it still seems reasonable to consider Kampf a capable 4th line centre. The problem is that on a team that needs to be maximizing every dollar spent under the salary cap, it’s hard to argue that what Kampf does is worth paying him $1.6M more than Pontus Holmberg. Whether it is Kampf, Holmberg, or even a newcomer like Jacob Quillan, the Leafs fourth line centre will be somewhat limited in what they can achieve on a line with Ryan Reaves. Reaves being one of the biggest reasons for Kampf’s results last season.

Reaves on the ice with Kampf seemed to point to the puck in the back of the net. The chances for and against with the duo on the ice might have been a bit more balanced than what you’d see with Noah Gregor, but undeniably there was a spike in goals against when David Kampf and Ryan Reaves played together. That needs to be a sign for managing their deployment given that the Leafs are unlikely to see either move off the fourth line this season. While Kampf is someone the Leafs want to believe they can give a regular shift to at 5v5, the Leafs need to be even more selective about when Reaves comes over the boards.

The Leafs are also likely in a better situation with Kampf simply by moving on from Noah Gregor. Kampf’s most frequent linemate in 2023-24 achieved terrible results with him, and there was an excessive amount of opportunities against the Leafs with Gregor and Kampf on the ice together. The theory that the duo would be able to quickly move up the ice together wasn’t a bad premise at the start of last season, but the results turned over time and it largely came down to Gregor and Kampf not being able to carry Reaves as the third linemate at the start of the season and the numbers suffered as a result.

When looking at the 5v5 teammate data from last season, putting Kampf with Holmberg and McMann might look like the best course of action for the Maple Leafs, as it seems to be the most capable of suppressing offence. The catch there is ignores the high likelihood that the Maple Leafs will want to try Bobby McMann higher up in the lineup to see if his 2023-24 season was for real or not and given the limited number of centres in the organization, putting Holmberg with Kampf would be entirely dependent on whether Fraser Minten is ready for the NHL or if the Leafs see Connor Dewar as a potential centre option.

In theory, despite the numbers not particularly endorsing it, the best course of action for Kampf might be to play with Dewar and Jarnkrok who at least fall into the broad archetype of what the Leafs are looking for in the bottom six.

The biggest gain that needs to be made in the 2024-25 season is the return of David Kampf, penalty killing specialist. The 2022-23 penalty was a huge success for the Leafs, with a 85.1% net success rate, good enough for 8th in the league. Last season, the Leafs dropped to a 79.4% net success rate and were the 11th worst penalty killing team in the league. To top that off, the Leafs had a 64.7% success rate in the playoffs and much like the three teams that performed worse than them, they were bounced in the first round.

No forward spent more time on the ice shorthanded for the Leafs last season than David Kampf, so this absolutely falls on him, as well as Mitch Marner, his most frequent linemate. Kampf’s goals against/60 on the penalty kill went from 7.21 in 2022-23 to a career worst 9.75 in 2023-24. Marner’s change wasn’t as dramatic, but he went from 7.22 to 8.84, as Mitch’s injury late in the season coincided with (as well as partially caused) the post trade deadline drop off in special teams.

As much as Marner has been a regular part of Kampf’s unit it is also worth noting that TJ Brodie is as well. There was a very noticeable difference between TJ Brodie in 22-23 and 23-24, and his 6.71 to 8.97 GA/60 over the past two seasons on the penalty kill shows that too. Moving on from Brodie and likely replacing him with Chris Tanev who had a 4.63 GA/60 on the penalty kill last season in Dallas and a 6.55 GA/60 in Calgary points to an upgrade. To some extent this might be making a case that Kampf’s impact on the penalty kill isn’t as significant as advertised (Kampf wouldn’t be the first penalty killing specialist to have their value overstated), but getting better penalty killing results will also buy Kampf some leeway in the other areas of his game and might get him back to playing with more confidence again.

Kampf’s 2022-23 season was already a decline from his 2021-22 season where he found the right fit with players like Ilya Mikheyev, Ondrej Kase, and Pierre Engvall. The shift to Engvall and Kerfoot, with some time with Jarnkrok wasn’t ideal, but it was still putting Kampf in a place to have some success. Even when Kampf was with Zach Aston-Reese and Sam Lafferty, there was still a feeling that Toronto was rolling a fourth line that could tread water, and treading water/penalty killing is a reasonable ask of Kampf. How do the Leafs get him back to that?

Success with Kampf is not contradicting when the Leafs want to deploy him. Putting Kampf on the ice at the same time as Ryan Reaves was a contradiction of usage. Reaves is someone the Leafs should only be deploying in the most sheltered of times and certainly not when there is a risk for being exposed in the Leafs end. While Kampf might be a checks/balance approach to Reaves, the numbers show it hasn’t worked the two shouldn’t play together. Kampf has thrived with players that control the neutral zone, not the offensive or defensive ends, but oddly enough the results with Calle Jarnkrok have been consistently underwhelming during their time in Toronto together. Instinct might say they should play together, but history says it will be short lived, although different results under Craig Berube wouldn’t be a surprise either.

The best case scenario for David Kampf might actually come in the form of additional competition for spots in the bottom six. If Easton Cowan and Fraser Minten are ready to grab NHL jobs it allows the Leafs to look at David Kampf’s role differently. With Minten at centre there is the option to play Holmberg with Kampf, and statistically Holmberg is a fit and one that can divide the bottom six responsibilities in a North/South fashion. There is also a lot of hope that a Leafs training camp for Connor Dewar will establish a clearer role for the new forward and through time spent working together that Dewar and Kampf could find chemistry they lacked late in the 2023-24 season and playoffs.

While the appeal of moving on from Kampf and freeing up cap space for other more critical needs was prominent throughout the summer the reality is now setting in that the Maple Leafs lineup is going to include many of the same faces as last season. It’s entirely possible that with a 10 team no trade clause and a less than ideal contract for his role and outputs that there wasn’t a deal that made as much sense as holding out hope for a better year under Craig Berube.