Bobby McMann committed to building off his first full season in the NHL

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Bobby McMann is focused on taking another step in elevating his game after playing his first full season in the NHL last year.

McMann was able to secure a spot in the Leafs’ middle-six, providing invaluable secondary scoring while also playing with some tenacity at times. He was able to finish seventh on the team in scoring and sixth in goals as a result, cementing his place as a key member of the supporting cast.

The work towards building off that season began at training camp on Thursday, where he told reporters that head coach Craig Berube is once again setting the tone early.

“He was basically just saying we want a certain identity. We want to play hard. Don’t take any shifts off,  don’t take any seconds off, pushing each other all the way through,” McMann said. “It started from the first drill. You’re chasing the guy down all the way through. You’re playing one-on-ones, two-on-twos. It’s just not giving up an inch.”

He was part of the Group 2 session, skating on a line with John Tavares and William Nylander. Having already spent some time on the ice with two of the Leafs’ key players, McMann said it was great to get some reps in and felt it was a good place to start training camp.

The goal McMann has set for himself over the summer was to improve his skating, specifically in coming out of the corners and angles in entering the zone, attacking the net, and positioning himself well.

“It just goes through waves of playing well, thinking you can play better.  It’s always a learning curve, always trying to get better every season that I’m playing here at this level,” he said. ” There’s so many good players and everybody’s fighting for spots.  Especially as you come down the end of the season, the play gets so good, so competitive in the playoffs.  But I think I learned a lot in that playoff run and taking a lot of that into this year.”

There will certainly be people in the Leafs organization who believe he is capable of continuing his upward trajectory. Chief among them is Berube, who told reporters that he feels that McMann has another gear he can reach.

“I think Bobby can take another step in his game,” he said. “You know, doing some things a little bit differently. Especially playing with those two guys [Tavares and Nylander], getting those guys the puck more, getting to the net more. I like a big guy with those two guys, to forecheck, get in there and create loose pucks, help out JT in those situations. Willy’s gonna do his thing, we all know that. But Bobby, I feel, can take another step in his game.”

As far as the playoffs went, McMann was able to put up three assists in 13 games played to finish 12th on the team in scoring. Though his two-way play did bring some value, he struggled to score throughout the spring (he went the last 24 games of the year without a goal) and his lack of offence was one aspect that led to them falling to the eventual Stanley Cup champions.

He may not have watched the playoffs after the Leafs were eliminated, but McMann learned a lot from his first postseason run and the second-round series against the Florida Panthers.

“Just the effectiveness of playing predictable and playing smart.  You saw that with them: They all play consistently hard, consistently predictable, and they don’t give you much,” he said on his takeaways from the series. “ They’re not handing the puck over. They’re making sure that they get it all the way, 200 feet into your end.  Making sure they try and consistently put the pressure on you, and that wears the team down.  We came out hard in that series and we played really well,  and we know that that’s kind of what we did at the start of the series.  We deviated from it a little bit and then they were able to gain that momentum in the series.”