Former Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo recently shared his thoughts as to why the team has been struggling lately. At the end of the day, Colaiacovo believes that it all comes down to the draft. His argument is based around the team's dedication to the 'core-four' players, who are all forwards. It would seem then, that the team would be focused on drafting more defensemen then no? Unfortunately, that has not really been the case. In fact, 2024 1st round pick Ben Danford is the first blueliner the team has drafted in the 1st round since Rasmus Sandin in 2018. <q>The only thing that I do agree with on these rankings is their drafting and developing. They deserve a �C' because, as I've stated all along � and this goes back to when Kyle Dubas was managing this team � when you put yourself in a position to build a salary structure with your team where you're going to build around four forwards, and it is going to occupy a large percentage of your cap, almost half of your cap, how the heck, organizationally, you did not decide to draft and develop more stud defensemen is beyond me.</q> You have to go back all the way to 2018 to find a defenseman drafted by the Maple Leafs that has actually appeared in NHL games. That season they actually drafted four blueliners that have sense made their debuts. They are Rasmus Sandin, Sean Durzi, Filip Kral, and Mac Hollowell. Naturally, the Leafs have sense traded both Durzi and Sandin, while Kral and Hollowell are no longer in the organization either. Of course, Sandin and Durzi would become the two best defenseman drafted by the team in the past decade, with both players having appeared in more than 200 regular season games. <div align='center'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/Sportsnet/status/1630675392158736386'> </a></blockquote></div> <div align='center'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/MapleLeafs/status/1090040754238615553'> </a></blockquote></div> Interestingly, Colaiacovo did mention that the Leafs drafted Sandin, but did not mention Durzi in his rant. Furthermore, he did not mention that either player was traded by the team. That would be an asset management issue, not a drafting and developing issue would it not? Had the Leafs kept both Sandin and Durzi, we could be talking about a very different team right now. <q>That's what has kept this organization back. Since Morgan Rielly, what defenseman has this team drafted and developed that has been a stud on defense? Justin Holl, (Rasmus) Sandin, (Timothy) Liljegren � that's where the organizational failure has been with this team.</q> Will Ben Danford help fix this problem? Will the Leafs start targeting defensemen in the draft more often in the coming years? Only time will tell us. Source: HockeyFeed <a href='https://www.hockeyfeed.com/nhl-news/ex-leaf-reveals-biggest-problem-with-current-maple-leafs?fbclid=IwY2xjawEkqNRleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHcKqCAZtSL7knY5OUH1sS6V5qPu1LCbVnnaYBrq6Nqsc5JGYlT38PEWMtQ_aem_Iov_hlBzh3RUAYyDmj8c2w' class='lien_marqueur' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>Ex-Leaf reveals biggest problem with current Maple Leafs</a>