The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t really figured out their lineup yet, with the exception of the first line. The combination of Knies–Matthews–Marner has been solid all season, and looks to be improving as Matthews gets his swagger back.
This leaves three lines, and Craig Berube clearly hasn’t settled on his preferred combination. He definitely liked the Pacioretty–Tavares–Nylander line, until Patches went down with an injury, but we can expect him to reclaim that spot when he returns.
The third line of McMann–Domi–Robertson has seen the most ice time together this season, and the Laughton at 3C experiment ended almost as soon as it started.
If we can assume that these are the most likely lines come playoff time, this leaves a lot of players fighting for the three spots on the fourth line.
Berube now has to choose from a combination of Scott Laughton, Steven Lorentz, Pontus Holmberg, Calle Jarnkrok, and David Kampf. Of those, he definitely seems to prefer Laughton, Lorentz, and Holmberg.
For this piece, I thought I’d take a look specifically at Kampf, how his season has gone, and whether he deserves another proper look in the lineup.
Offensive woes
Kampf has struggled mightily offensively this season. Through 53 games played, he has four goals and six assists for 10 points. Now Kampf has never been an offensive dynamo—he peaked at 27 points in 2022–23—but he’s on pace for only 15, the worst in his four years as a Leaf.
As of March 18, since the 4 Nations Face-Off, David Kampf has the worst expected goals for percentage on the Leafs at 33.5%. Season-wide is not great either at 45.34%. In the face-off dot he sits at 51.61%, slightly better than Domi’s 50.97%, but a far cry from Tavares and Matthews at 57.45% and 57.60% respectively.
A quick word on Calle Jarnkrok who has had a bit of a rough time since returning from injury. In seven games played he has a Corsi For percentage of 35.71%, an expected goals for percentage of 31.26%, and a measly 22.73% high danger chances for percentage. His actual goals for percentage however is 42.86%, with the caveat that it is an incredibly small sample size.
Stacking up against Pontus Holmberg, who is the more likely competition for the fourth-line spot, Kampf is underperforming but not by a wide margin. Holmberg’s expected goals for percentage sits at 47.84%, with roughly even Corsi and Fenwick for percentages as well. However, in HDCF% Holmberg far outpaces Kampf coming in at 50.47% compared to Kampf’s 42.38%. Some of this certainly can be explained by the fact that Holmberg has played up in the lineup while Kampf has not, although that also speaks to the trust that Berube has in Holmberg compared to Kampf.
What about defence?
Kampf’s real strength has been his defensive and special teams contributions, especially on the penalty kill. However, we haven’t been seeing this in his play lately. The Toronto penalty kill, season-wide, is 16th in the league at 78.2%. Over the last month however, it is an abysmal 71.1%, 27th in the league.
Among forwards, Kampf has the second most ice-time on the penalty kill at 106:31 minutes, behind Marner at 152:52. The addition of Laughton, a talented penalty killer in his own right, plus the recent penalty kill struggles has almost certainly contributed to Kampf’s recent stint of healthy scratches.
INSERT HEADING HERE
The numbers definitely don’t look good for Kampf, especially recently. He is averaging only 12:25 minutes of ice time a game, which is a career-low, further reinforcing his coach’s lack of trust. All this already has some Leafs fans pondering the possibility of buying him out this summer.
Kampf carries a $2.4M cap hit with two seasons left. Next year he has a 10-team no-trade clause, with that protection falling off for the 2026–27 season. Having a fourth liner making $2.4M against the cap doesn’t feel very good, for sure (the fact that we’ll probably have paid Grebenkin and a first for a different fourth liner is a piece all to itself). If the Leafs were to buy him out, it would be a $1,683,333 cap hit for the next two seasons with a $358,333 cap hit for the two seasons after that.
Kampf is clearly the odd man out, and what to do with him is an offseason question for Treliving to solve. However, he has not been playing his best, and the coach certainly doesn’t trust him. He’s not as physical as Laughton, a quality that you look for in fourth-line players, and doesn’t really offer anything unique that Laughton doesn’t.
The writing seems to be on the wall, but there are definitely questions about the long-term future of the player in this organization. For the time being however, unless his play significantly improves in the next 13 games, it looks like he won’t be drawing into the lineup come the postseason.
