The Maple Leafs Fourth Line Is Finally Deep — And Someone Good Is Getting Scratched

The Maple Leafs fourth line has five players for four jobs

The Maple Leafs fourth line heading into 2026-27 is the deepest Toronto has iced in years, and that is a problem worth having right up until the moment somebody has to sit. John Chayka spent July 1 rebuilding the bottom of the lineup from the studs out, and the arithmetic that came out the other side is unforgiving: there are more capable checking forwards on this roster than there are shifts to give them.

Colton Sissons signed a two-year deal at a $4.25 million cap hit. Teddy Blueger came in at two years and $2.5 million. Brandon Duhaime signed for three years at a reported $2.6 million average. Add Steven Lorentz at $1.35 million through 2027-28 and Dakota Joshua at $3.25 million on the same expiry, and Toronto has roughly $14 million committed to fourth-line and thirteenth-forward roles.

That is a lot of money for minutes that will not decide many hockey games. It is also, for the first time in a long time, a group where the coach can pick based on merit rather than on who is healthy. Both things are true.

Who is actually locked in

Sissons and Blueger are not fourth-line questions; they are structural pieces. Sissons is a right-shot centre who takes defensive-zone draws and kills penalties, and at $4.25 million he was not signed to be a healthy scratch. Blueger is the same archetype at a lower price and has been one of the league's more reliable penalty killers. We covered how the two of them reshape Toronto's special teams in our look at the rebuilt bottom six and penalty kill.

Duhaime is the newest and the one whose contract most obviously reflects intent. Three years is real term for a fourth-liner. He forechecks hard, plays the wall, and brings the physical edge Chayka has said repeatedly he wanted more of. A team that hands out three years is planning to play the guy.

That is three of four spots, before you account for Jack Roslovic, who signed on July 1 and profiles as a middle-six option rather than a checker. Which leaves Lorentz and Joshua fighting over the last chair.

The Lorentz case

Lorentz is the cheapest and, on last season's evidence, the most productive of the checking group. He put up 18 points in 71 games in 2025-26 with two shorthanded goals, which on a team that struggled badly for secondary offence was not nothing. He kills penalties, he can slide up the lineup without the structure collapsing, and he is a Toronto-area kid playing for his childhood team, which matters exactly zero on the ice and quite a lot in a market where the fourth line gets talked about on morning radio.

His cap hit is the real argument. At $1.35 million, Lorentz is the sort of contract every cap-strapped team needs three of. When you are projected to be at or slightly over the $104 million ceiling — and Toronto is, as we laid out in our piece on getting cap compliant with Max Domi on LTIR — the guy providing 80 per cent of the production at 40 per cent of the price wins on efficiency every time.

The Joshua case

Joshua is the bigger, heavier player and the one with the higher offensive ceiling. In 2023-24 with Vancouver he set career highs across the board with 18 goals and 32 points in 63 games while throwing 244 hits, the most in a season by a forward in Canucks history. At his best he is a genuine forechecking problem who can finish around the net. He is also, at $3.25 million through 2027-28, the most expensive fourth-liner on the roster and the one whose 2025-26 in Toronto did not come close to justifying the number.

There is a version of this season where Joshua rediscovers what he was in Vancouver, plays 14 minutes a night on a line with Blueger and Duhaime, and Toronto looks smart for being patient. There is also the version where he is a $3.25 million healthy scratch, which is an ugly sentence for a team counting every dollar.

We argued in July that Joshua is the most logical cap-clearing chip on the roster, and nothing about the last three weeks has changed that. If Chayka needs $3 million to finish a defence trade, the phone call starts here.

Roslovic is the wild card

Jack Roslovic complicates every version of this. He signed on July 1, he is a right-shot forward who can play centre or wing, and he scored a career-high 22 goals in 2021-22 with Columbus. He is not a fourth-liner by trade and Toronto did not sign him to be one.

But rosters are not built in tidy rows of four, and the last two spots in a lineup card are usually filled by whoever the coach trusts that week. If Roslovic ends up on the third line with Nick Paul, the checking group has room to breathe. If he slides down because the top six sorts itself differently, the squeeze gets worse and the odd man out is more likely to be a .25 million forward than a .35 million one.

Jim Hiller's structure will decide this more than anyone's contract does. The system he brought from Los Angeles asks a lot from the bottom of the lineup defensively, which we covered in our breakdown of Hiller's defensive structure and how it changes deployment. Coaches who demand that much detail from a fourth line tend to pick the player who gives it to them, not the player who costs the most.

Waivers make this a real decision, not a paper one

This is the part that separates Toronto's fourth-line crunch from the usual training camp filler. Both Lorentz and Joshua are established NHL players who would need to clear waivers to be sent to the Marlies. Neither would clear. That means whoever loses this competition does not go develop in the AHL — he sits in the press box in a suit, on an NHL cap hit, all season.

Carrying a $3.25 million thirteenth forward is a luxury a team with $104 million of room and a roster already at the ceiling cannot really afford. Carrying a $1.35 million one is annoying but survivable. That asymmetry is the whole argument, and it points in a direction the Leafs may not love.

Our take: keep Lorentz, move Joshua

This is where LeafsLurker plants a flag. Lorentz is the better value, the better penalty killer on last season's evidence, and the more flexible piece. Joshua is the better bet to score, but Toronto did not spend this summer rebuilding the bottom six to hope a fourth-liner scores 15 goals. It spent the summer trying to become harder to play against and cheaper at the margins, and Lorentz serves both goals at a quarter of the cost of the alternative.

Trading Joshua also solves a second problem simultaneously. Toronto still needs a top-four defenceman, still has no cap space, and still has to move salary out before it can move anything meaningful in. Joshua is the cleanest $3.25 million on the roster to relocate, with two years of term at a number a mid-market team can absorb.

None of this is a criticism of Joshua as a player. It is a criticism of the fit between his contract and this roster's constraints, and those are different things. Jim Hiller inherits a bottom six with more good options than jobs, which is a far better problem than the one his predecessor had. But somebody good is getting scratched in October, and the club should decide now which name it wants on that list.

What's next

Training camp opens in September under a shortened four-game preseason, which means fewer live auditions than usual and more weight on practice reps and internal projections. We previewed the full slate of roster battles waiting in the fall.

The tell will come earlier than camp. If Chayka moves salary out in August as part of a defence upgrade, the fourth-line question answers itself. If nobody moves, Hiller starts the season making a decision that costs the organization more than $3 million a year in press-box seating. The full commitment picture is on our contracts page.