582 days? Has it really been that long?

Nineteen months after playing their last meaningful game in front of fans, the Maple Leafs kicked off the 2021-22 season with the same expectations...and hopes for different results

John Tavares and William Nylander celebrated the game-winning goal early in the third period.

Well, your trusty correspondent was today days old – or 21,505 days old - when he learned that there’s something on the Internet called the Date Duration Calendar. It’s really cool. You punch in any two dates and it will automatically tell you exactly how many days has passed between each.

The last time the Toronto Maple Leafs played a meaningful game in a building full of fans was March 10, 2012 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. By the time they finished the morning skate for their game two days later against the Nashville Predators, all hell had broken loose and the world was on the verge of a shutdown. So you punch in the date of their last game, then you enter Oct. 13, 2021 and it tells you, “It is 582 days from the start date to the end date, but not including the end date.”

OK, so that means it has been 582 days between a regular-season NHL game in front of fans at the Scotiabank Arena. I think.

So much has changed since then. And in many ways, nothing has changed since then. (Overheard in the concession line prior to the game: “Guess how much it costs for two sandwiches and two beers? Eighty-five bucks.” And when you’re in the bowels of the rink, you can still smell the old Toronto money.) The Maple Leafs game operations staff still plays The Hockey Song by Stompin’ Tom Connors at precisely the same juncture of the second period it has for years now. People who come to the games still seem more interested in what’s happening on the screen of their phones than what is transpiring on the ice. And for their 55th consecutive opening night – or 19,888 days according to the Date Duration Calendar – the Maple Leafs are on a quest to win the Stanley Cup. In case you’re not familiar with NHL history, that is the league’s longest Cup drought ever, eclipsing the 54 posted for the New York Rangers between 1940 and 1994. (That’s 19,785 days according to the Date Duration Calendar. Man, this thing is fun.)

The front page of the trusty Toronto Star that arrived at my door Wednesday morning proclaimed, “The time is now.” The time is always now for this team. Until it isn’t. The Leafs have the most rabid fan base in the NHL, but it’s also the most forgiving. There will be absolutely zero ramifications for this organization if it fails to live up to live up to the hype surrounding it. There never are any. That’s part of the problem, but don’t tell that to people confuse suffocating attention and unconditional love with harsh criticism. The Leafs almost always get a free pass in these parts.

The reality with this team is that it is a second-tier Stanley Cup contender in 2021-22, and that might be being a little bit generous. It is not in the class of the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning or New York Islanders in the Eastern Conference, nor is it on par with the Colorado Avalanche or Vegas Golden Knights in the west. At best, it’s in a group with the Edmonton Oilers, Washington Capitals, Boston Bruins, Carolina Hurricanes and St. Louis Blues in the next group of contenders – teams that would not surprise too many people if they were able to mount a serious playoff run. But before the Leafs can be considered anything even resembling a Stanley Cup contender, they have to get past the first round of the playoffs first. Do that, then we can start talking about contending.

And their home opener Wednesday night was a step toward that goal, largely because the Leafs vanquished the team that humiliated them in the first round of the playoffs last season. Their 2-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens is definitely something upon which to build. The Leafs have to be heartened by William Nylander’s goalscorer’s goal, David Kampf’s mastery in the faceoff circle and penalty kill and Jack Campbell’s ability to keep the Leafs in the game during a dreadful first 10 minutes.

To a man (who was made available, at least) the Leafs talked about the energy they extracted from the crowd, one that was more than 1,300 short of a sellout and was quiet as a church mouse until the Leafs were charged with killing a 5-on-3 shorthanded situation early in the third period. “Right from warm-ups, the energy in the building was just incredible,” Campbell said. “At big moments in the game, the fans were just super loud and super into the game and it’s great to see everybody back. So, thank you, Leaf Nation, you helped us get a big two points.”

What else is he going to say though, that most of the lower bowl is comprised of corporate welfare bums who get stuck in the sushi line and don’t get back in their seats until the middle of the second period? And even though the players and those who run all NHL teams don’t really care too much what the fans think, you can tell they’re grateful to have returned to some sense of normalcy.

But not too normal. Normal for the Maple Leafs would be another promising season followed by a crushing, gut punch, kick-in-the-pills-with-a-steel-toed-boot defeat in the first round of the playoffs. The singular goal of this team is to avoid that fate in the spring of 2022, which is 199 days from now, if the playoffs begin May 1. (But not including the end date.)

Enjoy the season, everyone.