So far this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs have failed miserably.
What was strange was that the revamped Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t accomplish much throughout the season, despite the fact that they were a work in progress from the start following a disappointing summer.
Several times it appeared as though Keefe was about to be dismissed, but then the team would pull off incredible comebacks and win consecutive games.
For example, there were at least two games in the early season when they rallied from a three-goal deficit to win (one of those was their dramatic comeback and eventual overtime loss to Columbus), but overall, it would have been their fifth consecutive loss. One of those games was in Tampa.
At times, it seemed like the team was in dire need of a goaltender and a defenseman, but they did little to address the situation. Throughout my entire sports betting career, I have never witnessed a club that was supposed to contend for a championship simply do nothing whenever a situation arose.
Over a 28-game run, the Leafs were a top team, winning more than 70% of their points and leading the league in scoring. Having five superstars and a fantastic supporting cast of scorers paid off, at least temporarily.
The one and only issue? Despite this fantastic run, every club the Leafs were fighting with went on a similar one, and now with only ten games left the Atlantic Division is gone to them and Tampa might pass them and turn them into a Wild Card team, which will be a humilation.
And while anything can happen in the NHL’s Annual Tournament of Variance, i.e the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Toronto Maple Leafs do not appear like a solid bet to win the Stanley Cup.
If we are lucky, this will cast a reverse jinx on the squad and this too-soon litany of regrets will come back to haunt me when they win the Cup.
So here goes nothing.
Fifthly, Things the Toronto Maple Leafs Will Wish They Had Done This Summer
5. Hiring Brad Treliving
The Kyle Dubas topic is bothersome because he’s become into a political figure where the takes are just so skewed and ludicrous that you can’t have a regular discourse about him.
The fact is, however, that the Leafs trained a young manager and allowed him learn on the job and just when he was maybe about to put that knowledge to use, he went to another team.
Dubas was only contentious because a billion dollar club not only put a youngster in charge of their team, but also let him try to innovate in an industry that is notoriously adverse to innovation. It was wonderful in just about every way and probably won’t ever happen again, so it’s terrible that when bad luck and circumstance prevented him from wining that many took it personally.
No matter. He had his run and while I personally would prefer have kept him on, I’m happy to move on as well. I simply don’t really appreciate moving from the cutting edge of the NHL practically the pinnacle of the ordinary NHL GM.
Treliving seems to operate by the Book of Cliched Hockey Beliefs and he’s also the only GM in the league with 2 underperforming clubs in the league right now. *(You could add Dubas on this list, but he left Treliving the league’s finest core and $20 million to spend).
If the Leafs don’t make it out of the first round, the benefit is that the next President of MLSE will surely remove Shanahan and that means a one-and-done with Treliving. I’d prefer win the Stanely Cup or at least have a long playoff season, but at least there is that silver lining.
Brad Treliving is a poor GM and he never should have been in charge for one of Auston Matthews’ limited Prime Seasons.
It’s too bad Dubas lost the power-struggle. I would have liked to see what he’d have done without Shanahan meddling all the time.
4. Summer Spending
What in the earth was Brad Treliving thinking last year, or at least, who was advising him?
Signing Tyler Bertuzzi for a one-year deal was wise. The rest? Not so much.
Max Domi is a one-dimensional player who loses his minutes unless extremely sheltered. John Klingberg was 30 and in a major decline even before the injury. Hockey players – with the exception, appearently, of ex-Leafs – don’t grow better after the age of 30.
Klingberg will go down as one of the worst signings in the history of the franchise.
As will the signing of Ryan Reaves, which remains an awful embarrassment. Signing Reaves to a one-year deal for the league minimum would have been very ridiculous, but giving him more money than the minimum, and three-years is plain terrible. David Clarkson’s agent probably couldn’t believe it when it happened.
Making David Kampf the highest paid fourth liner in the NHL was a choice, and not a good one. But despite all of that, the choice to not improve the blue-line at all, and to come into the season with Samsonov and Woll as the starts were far worse.
Treliving’s summer was poor, his season was worse. The current squad seems to succeed in spite of its GM, not because of him.
3. Not Trading William Nylander At His Absolute Peak
William Nylander is a remarkable player and one of my favorite Toronto Maple Leafs of all time.
The fan in me is pleased that he re-signed and will likely play his whole career for my favorite team. Like Morgan Rielly, this makes me immensely pleased.
But also like Morgan Rielly, the cold analytical side of my brain recognizes that signing him was definitely a mistake.
Nylander can never be better than he is right now, and the logical decision was to execute a sign-and-trade to bring in the kind of great defenseman or goalie that you can’t really get without drafting or making a huge Trade.
Nylander for Noah Dobson? Nylander for Juuse Saros? Something like that would have benefited a lot more than re-signing your third best offensive player.
Again, I love Nylander and I’m delighted he’s here. But when the person is absolutely peaking at the exact time, you’ve got to swap him for a younger player who plays a position you need.
Then then, maybe the Leafs will prove me wrong by winning the Stanley Cup with the best forward group in hockey but also the weakest blue-line and goalkeeper group of any contender.
2. Not Upgrading the Blue-Line
Off all the things the Toronto Maple Leafs did or didn’t do this past year, there is only one thing they will grow to regret more than not strengthening their blue-line.
The Leafs signed Klingberg in the summer with a thought that another puck-moving defenceman would really benefit the squad as formed. This was a sensible, and I believe, correct evaluation.
The Leafs were incorrect in choosing Klingberg specifically, but he did symbolize the type of player they needed – just a healthier version.
And to be true, even a healthy Klinbgerg wasn’t enough to put the Leafs blue-line in line with the top ones in the league, but their most perplexing move was not replacing Klinbger when he went down.
The Leafs added Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin, two guys who are difficult to play against, but whose value is entirely countered by their lack of offense and a tendancy to get trapped in their own zones. If they make the Leafs blue-line better it is not by a considerable degree.
The Leafs blue-line is without a top-level superstar and lacks agility and puck-moving ability overall. Given how good the team’s strikers are, I think it was a tremendous error to try to get through this season with such an obvious weakness.
You can’t expect the management to work miracles, but I don’t believe acquiring players who are much better than Lyubushkin or Edmundson is a hard ask.
1. Not Getting a Goalie
Not adding a goalie is by far the biggest mistake the Leafs GM and his partners will regret when this team is undoubtedly beaten in the playoffs.
Joseph Woll has skill, but he is a rookie who has played approximately one complete season over the last four years. He’s injury prone and has no experience. It is wise to give him an opportunity and I hope he succeeds, but when one of your goalies gets the league minimum there is no reason not to invest significantly another goalkeeper, especially if the two best players in the history of your team are in their primes.
The Leafs are in win-now mindset and heading into the season with a rookie goalie and a guy they sandbagged in arbitration and wouldn’t committ to long term (smartly it turns out) is a risk they didn’t need to take.
Goalies can be hard to forecast and finding an outstanding one and then getting him to play up to the level you expect can be the hardest thing to do in hockey. But that makes sense because the hardest thing to perform should have the highest reward, and having a top goalie is easily the best single thing a club could have.
The salary cap is no justification because they had 20 million and decided not to utilize it on goalies. They also could have moved some combo of Kampf/Domi/Brodie at any moment to get the cap room for a goalkeeper.
Just because finding a top goaltender is challenging doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt. The Leafs did not do enough to secure a reliable goalie and today they are 22nd in the NHL in overall save percentage. The fact that they are the 10th best club by points-percentage with that level of goaltending is impressive.
Being 10th with the 22nd goaltending tells me that this squad might be first with top-level goaltending and at the top of the league with even league-average goaltending.
The Leafs could fluke their way to a Stanley Cup this spring, but they won’t be entering the NHL Playoffs as one of the top contenders and that is virtually purely because they do not have a top goalkeeper.
