Happy opening week! The real games are finally ready to begin, and we can start finding out who this Maple Leafs team really is this season.
They are an admittedly difficult team to handicap. The range of possibilities feels rather drastic. I could see them comfortably making the playoffs, and I could see them finishing last in the Atlantic. Let’s break down some of the variables.
Reasons for Optimism
The roster improved
This one is pretty simple, as you can point to two players in particular: Darren Raddysh and Gavin McKenna. While Brandon Carlo is probably better than he showed in Toronto, Raddysh is significantly better than Carlo or any other defenseman who exited the organization after last season. That’s before we mention Chris Tanev hopefully bouncing back physically after playing just 11 games last season.
Similarly, at forward, I’m fairly confident projecting that McKenna is already better than every forward who left the organization after last season.
Right away, the Leafs added some real quality to the top of their lineup. From there, you can quibble with the rest of the forwards. Is Colton Sissons really better than Scott Laughton? I’d rate Bobby McMann the second-best forward if you lined up everyone added and removed. But top-of-the-lineup quality rules the day. The Leafs improved there, added some scoring depth, and made some stylistic improvements to the forward group with checkers who want to check, compared to someone like Calle Jarnkrok last season.
On defense, they have simply improved across the board. Players like Simon Benoit and Philippe Myers really struggled last season, and solid third-pairing minutes from Nick Blankenburg or Emil Andrae would be a significant improvement. Both can provide that.
Goaltending remains to be seen.
But the roster is better because they added some difference-makers they previously lacked. That has a positive trickle-down effect throughout the lineup.
The bar they need to clear is incredibly low
It’s hard to overstate just how poor the Leafs were last season. Half of their goaltending tandem took a leave of absence, and the other half promptly got hurt after being overplayed. Their 4C got hurt in the preseason, and it threw their entire lineup out of whack (somehow). Auston Matthews had basically one good month, the usually healthy William Nylander missed 17 games, and Matthew Knies seemingly played hurt for half the year. The latter didn’t show up on the man-games-lost counter, but the players who were injured added up to the second-most impact lost to injury last season.
And we haven’t even gotten into coaching yet. The Leafs gave up 4,223 shot attempts last season, which led the league. The next-highest total was Seattle’s 4,180, and the Leafs were one of only four teams to go over 4,000; the fourth was Vancouver at 4,002. Think about that: The Canucks, a horrendous team transitioning to a full-blown rebuild, gave up over 200 fewer shot attempts!
This was very much a coaching problem. Even in their division-winning year, the Leafs gave up over 4,000 shot attempts, eighth-most in the league, and that was with a healthy Chris Tanev and contract-year Mitch Marner. There was no reason for it with that roster, and there was no reason last season’s roster should have been that bad.
They were mediocre pretty well across the board in every underlying metric. Teams were walking into Toronto and just handing it to them on a nightly basis. The only question was whether the score would reflect it. Despite all of that, the Leafs actually sat in a playoff spot in January, just past the midpoint of the season.
They do not need everything to go right to be really good. They need to be league average in some basic categories—like, say, not getting completely dominated night in and night out—and have a few of their stars be the baseline stars they have been. If McKenna has a really strong rookie season, even better. Baseline competence should put them in the hunt for a playoff spot. I don’t think that should be an extremely difficult thing for them to achieve.
Division regression is coming
There is no question the Atlantic is one of the best and most difficult divisions in the league. But oh boy, are there some prime candidates for regression. Four of the top six teams in the league in five-on-five PDO were in the division: Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, and Tampa Bay. Three of those four teams were outshot and outchanced at five-on-five.
There are some talented teams there. None of this includes the Florida Panthers, who will almost certainly be back—and a problem—this season. It also doesn’t include the Ottawa Senators, who are undergoing some change in their own right. Regression is going to hit some of these teams after seemingly everything went right for a number of them just a season ago, and that’s going to open the door. The Leafs have to do their part to seize the opportunity, but I’m confident there are some paper tigers here that will reveal themselves in time.
Reasons for Concern
They are banking on a number of older and/or injury-prone players to stay healthy
The Leafs are slated to be one of the older teams in the league this season, and with that comes injury risk. It was one of their big issues last season. In particular, Chris Tanev played just 11 games. His injury-prone tag is probably a bit unfair: In the four seasons before last, he played 75, 75, 65, and 82 games. You would take any of those numbers this season. But he’s also about to turn 37 and just missed basically a full season of hockey. Considering how important he is to the team, that is a scary proposition.
Auston Matthews has played 80-plus games twice in nine seasons, excluding the COVID year. At this point, it’s fair to say he can’t be counted on to play a full season, and you can expect him to miss notable time.
The Leafs would struggle to replace either player, as we saw last season. Even with the improvements elsewhere, both are too important to this team.
Beyond them, Nick Paul and Dakota Joshua are already battling injury, their starting defensemen are all over 30, and their starting goalie is 38. Let’s just be honest: All of that is concerning. It doesn’t mean they can’t stay relatively healthy and play all season. Tavares played all 82 games last season, McCabe played 80, OEL and Rielly played 78 each, and Bobrovsky played 52. There are obviously examples that work in their favour, too. But Father Time is undefeated.
Questionable scoring depth
If Nick Paul misses any time to start the season, their bottom six consists of Easton Cowan and five players who combined for 22 NHL goals last season. Nick Robertson scored 16 goals by comparison.
Yes, they are checkers, and I do think the Leafs need at least some of those, but they also need secondary scoring. Hopefully Paul is okay, Cowan takes a step, and maybe they hit on a player like Groulx turning into a double-digit goal scorer (he certainly has a good enough shot to do so). This is veering into “hope is not a plan” territory, though. They are really banking on their top six driving pretty well all of the offense, along with some contributions from the defense. You need more than two lines chipping in offensively. Can they create that?
Goaltending remains a question mark
I certainly understand their logic in net, reuniting the Bobrovsky-Stolarz tandem that was so good in Florida. Bobrovsky is the steady, reliable presence who can handle a proper workload, while Stolarz excels in limited action. But Bobrovsky is 38 and coming off the worst season of his career. Stolarz is clearly talented, but at this point, he is completely unreliable until he proves otherwise. They moved off a young goalie in Dennis Hildeby, who showed really well last season and would have been a solid third option, and in his place is a goalie with three NHL games under his belt.
Yes, Artur Akhtyamov stole the net from Hildeby and was a playoff MVP, but he has yet to show anything at the NHL level. That is a different beast for goaltenders.
All of that to say, the position is one big question mark. If Bobrovsky and Stolarz do what they did last season, the Leafs would be in major trouble. They need a return to form from both.
Part 2 of this week’s Leafs Notebook will follow later this afternoon
