The Toronto Maple Leafs have taken steps in the right direction this off-season despite the absence of an “everything is on the table” giant swing for the fences, change of direction type of move. The decisions to go in a new direction behind the bench, not only bringing in Craig Berube but some noteworthy assistants in Marc Savard and Lane Lambert, and Brad Treliving’s focus on the blueline that was punctuated by the signing of Chris Tanev, but included reasonable gambles on Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Jani Hakanpaa, warrant some optimism. Just like last season, the Leafs are a very good team, and with a little luck and things a few things breaking in their favour, Toronto is a true contender.
That’s the thing though. Things tend not to go in the Maple Leafs’ favour and there are a lot of things that the Maple Leafs are counting on when it comes to their path to success. It’s easy to look at teams like the Edmonton Oilers last season, which were a very good team, and see how luck can help. The Oilers were insanely healthy last year. Evan Bouchard came into his own, and after a horrendous start to the season, Stuart Skinner was the goaltender the Oilers needed in the playoffs. The Leafs could get that too, although when it comes to the playoffs, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have a history of carrying their team where sadly the Leafs stars do not.
The Leafs list of things that need to go their way are not just limited to health. They’ve taken a huge gamble in net. Neither Anthony Stolarz nor Joseph Woll have played even a half season worth of starts before and Toronto is counting on both of them to handle an increased workload without fatigue or injury catching up with them. If the Leafs are unlucky there they are hoping to either get lucky that Matt Murray is a capable NHL goaltender or that Dennis Hildeby is ready for his shot.
While the preseason is encouraging, the Leafs are certainly putting a lot of hope in Max Pacioretty that he is closer to his 30-goal form than his four-goal form of last season. There have been a lot of preseason performances that quickly unraveled in the regular season and the Leafs will need Pacioretty to not be one of those. Or they will need a bit of luck that Easton Cowan is ready for the NHL or that Nick Robertson can be that secondary scorer required to replace Tyler Bertuzzi.
The Leafs are hoping that things work out with William Nylander at centre. Or that Max Domi can take on the role or Fraser Minten returns ready to go or that Pontus Holmberg can play his way up the lineup card.
In short, the Leafs are good but there are question marks. The Leafs need many of these iffier situations to go in their favour for Toronto to have their dream season and not just be another good team that exits the postseason early.
Counting on luck doesn’t seem ideal. Coming out of training camp and in the early part of the season, the Leafs can test some of their luck and that will be fun, but what Toronto needs, especially from their GM, Brad Treliving, is a commitment to making the Maple Leafs a great team.
Suppose I’m going to put a definition to greatness. In that case, it needs to be somewhat grounded in regular season success first, and a great team should win their division, be in contention for the President’s Trophy, dominate in either goal scoring, goal prevention, or at least one of the special teams. Anything short of this can be very good, but you are still hoping for stars to align to get you the rest of the way to the Stanley Cup.
Becoming “great” will require the Maple Leafs to be less risk-averse than they were last season and take a more brutally honest approach to what is needed to put them over the top and go after it, and who on their roster can easily be replaced.
It is not as if the Maple Leafs are a situation like the Canucks last season or the Senators in 2017 were going on a PDO tear has led people to improperly assess where the team is at. The Maple Leafs have consistently been near the top of the Atlantic Division, but ultimately second fiddle to eventual Stanley Cup winners or finalists, and they are consistently a team that has exited the playoffs prematurely. They are good but not good enough, and whether it is luck that gets them the rest of the way or intervention from their front office, it remains to be seen.
That’s not to say that bad luck can’t undo a great team either. The North Division iteration of the Maple Leafs might have been the best team Toronto has had in decades and all it took was John Tavares’ having his playoffs end 10 minutes into Game One with an unfortunate injury to grind that season to a halt.
There’s always a strong case for the Maple Leafs that they are closer to that “great” level, but they have an overwhelming amount of bad luck. If that’s the case, Brad Treliving and the Maple Leafs need to go into the season with a Murphy’s Law mentality and be prepared to mitigate that bad luck that comes their way. Rather than resting on the laurels of being a team that compete, the Leafs need to strive to be that over the top unmatchable level of talent and while that might not be possible this year and with a finite amount of future resources to burn through, it will be interesting to see if the Leafs are pushing to be their best or just want to hope for the best.
