Sheldon Keefe makes a surprising statement about Ondrej Kase

Every year, it seems like there's always a few teams around the league who bring in players during the offseason who seem to exceed expectations during the training camp and the preseason and wind up with big opportunities with their respective team to start the season.

This year, one if those teams appears to be the Toronto Maple Leafs, and despite having no shortage of new faces that have shown up to training camp and absolutely shined, one seems to stand out for Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe.

Ondrej Kase is a skilled NHL player- there is no denying that. The major flaw in his game for years has been his inability to remain healthy, having suited up in just 207 games across 5 NHL seasons. This year, Kase appears healthy, hungry and ready to take a big step in his NHL career.

On Monday, Keefe spoke with the media following practice revealing something about Kase that has certainly caught some off guard.

"I think he's going to challenge some of our guys in the top six," Keefe said of the 25-year-old Czech.

Kaše already has a 20-goal season under his belt (2017-18) but has been decimated by injuries for 3 consecutive seasons since - managing to suit up in just 3 games with the Boston Bruins last season.

It stands to reason that if Kaše is challenging for top-six minutes this season, he'll be doing so on the left side of the ice, as he won't be replacing Mitch Marner or William Nylander on the right wing (though Nylander has played some minutes on the left side before).

It's going to be interesting to see what the Leafs do with the glut of talent they have on the wing to fill a limited number of spots. For now, it would appear as though Kaše is not on the bubble, but is positioned well inside of it.

Some other names who are competing for meaningful minutes with the big club this season are Michael Bunting, Nick Ritchie, David Kampf, Wayne Simmonds, Kirill Semyonon, Josh Ho-Sang (PTO), Nikita Gusev (PTO) and rookie Nick Robertson.

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