Ten Maple Leaf myths (past and present)
As the Toronto Maple Leafs muddle through a terrible start after a worse playoff, perhaps it's time we cleared up a few misconceptions about this franchise
Their leading goal scorer is a 38-year-old on a minimum wage contract who is 2 ½ years older than the GM. They gave up a touchdown Saturday night to the Wilkes-Barre Penguins. Three players taking up $33,543,250 in salary cap space have combined for one goal and four points. They look destined to lose their best defenseman in the off-season to unrestricted free agency. One of their prized off-season acquisitions has, in all likelihood, earned a demotion to the fourth line. They haven’t developed a homegrown goaltender in about 15 years. And they’re off to a dreadful start after yet another epic playoff failure.
It’s not really hard to ascertain why, “the mood ain’t great,” as Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Jake Muzzin put it. The Maple Leafs enter a road game tonight against the undefeated Carolina Hurricanes a broken team at a crossroads. There is still plenty of time for them to turn this thing around, but there’s also plenty of time for this to become an even greater disaster. With every passing day, it’s becoming more and more difficult to defend the moves that GM Kyle Dubas has made, as it is president Brendan Shanahan’s decision to install Dubas and give him carte blanche to assemble the roster. At best, the Maple Leafs are a flawed team with only an outside chance to win a Stanley Cup. At worst, it’s a group that has already frittered away every advantage it has gained over the years, with a championship nothing more than a pipe dream.
It’s easy to sit back now and point out that the entire scheme was flawed. The only thing is, it was also easy to do that a long time ago, going back to July 1, 2018, when Dubas signed John Tavares to a seven-year deal worth $77 million that not only gave them more of what they already had and none of what they needed, but set the stage for a series of contracts to be handed out that have placed them in salary cap hell. Some of us pointed that out at the time, saying this approach would accomplish nothing. Some of us were laughed at by our peers.
There’s a good chance this is being magnified by the fact that we’re talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Centre of the Hockey Universe™ is often prone to hyperbole and that can lead to misconceptions. Here are 10 of them, addressing both the current state of affairs of this franchise and ones that have followed them for decades:
1. THIS TEAM IS A LEGITIMATE CUP CONTENDER
On opening night, a fellow journalist who no longer covers the team closely turned to me after the player introductions and said, “It just struck me, this team isn’t that great.” He was bang-on, of course. The Toronto Maple Leafs are a good team, a better-than-average team, but not a serious Stanley Cup contender. That doesn’t mean they can’t win a Stanley Cup or come close to doing so, but they likely won’t. They are, at best, among the second tier of contending teams that would have to hope for everything to go perfectly for two months in the spring and for some heavyweights to get upset along the way. It actually boggles the mind how some observers believe this team is ready to compete for a championship. Win a playoff round first, then we can talk about being a contender.
2. IT IS BUILT ON A TRADITION OF EXCELLENCE
This might have been the case at one time, but it simply no longer applies. Even without the longest Stanley Cup drought in NHL history, the Leafs simply cannot be considered an elite franchise. They have had success, but it was almost always a triumph of the collective. Consider that the Leafs have never had a Norris Trophy winner. They’ve had only seven scoring championships, none in more than 80 years. They’ve had two Hart Trophy winners, with Teeder Kennedy’s 1955 MVP recognition basically coming as a retirement gift. They haven’t had a Vezina Trophy winner since the award went from going to the team with the best goals-against average to the best goalie as voted upon by GMs. Mitch Marner is only the thirdd player the Leafs have played on the first all-star team in the expansion era. They have one coach who has won the Jack Adams Award.
You could argue they have never even had a true superstar. Ever. The only thing the Maple Leafs have been peddling for the past six decades is mediocrity. And hope that things will improve. Come on, you can only suck on the fumes of 70- and 50-year-old semi-dynasties for so long.
3. KYLE DUBAS IS A NEW-AGE GM
Dubas is young and his analytics background is well documented, but the fact is Dubas can be a good old boy just like the rest of the old guard in the game. The Leafs have an inordinate number of connections to the Soo Greyhounds, where Dubas was a scout and later GM. Sheldon Keefe was his coach in the Soo and Michael Bunting and Jack Campbell played for the teams he managed. Kyle Clifford, who was acquired from the Los Angeles Kings along with Campbell, was a client when Dubas was a player agent.
4. PRESSURE MAKES WINNING IMPOSSIBLE
That would ignore the fact that Manchester United, Real Madrid, the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Cowboys have all had sustained periods of success playing under conditions that are even more onerous on their players. It’s strange how so few people focus on the fact that the environment can also bring out the best in players who embrace it. When Gary Roberts left Toronto in 2005 – and later tried to arrange a trade back – he lamented the fact that the guy who worked the door at the arena in Florida asked him for his I.D. Given what the Leafs have accomplished in return for their undying adulation, things could be worse. A lot worse.
5. THE LEAFS ARE A TOUGHER OPPONENT
After being vilified for being gritless pushovers, Dubas set about altering his roster to get players who could give them some pushback. But it did nothing to make the team a tougher out because the players he got were not players who could have a meaningful impact on the game. Team toughness is an identity, a culture, not a slight shortcoming that is addressed by picking up over-the-hill grit guys and throwing them into your bottom six. They did have an impact player who made them tougher, but then they dealt Nazem Kadri for Alexander Kerfoot and Tyson Barrie. Zach Hyman made the Leafs tougher to play against.
6. THE LEAFS PUT PROFITS OVER WINNING
Again, one that might have been true at one time, like more than 30 years ago, but it is a narrative that has worn out. From the top of their corporate structure down to the ushers, the Leafs are an organization that desperately wants to win and will throw no end of resources at an effort to do that. Unfortunately, they largely have had no clue how to go about accomplishing that goal. Since the reign of Harold Ballard, the Leafs have brought in Hall-of-Fame players, coaches and executives. They’re paying a man $6.25 million to not coach them. They put enormous amounts of resources into player development and in their farm team.
7. THIS TEAM HAS QUALITY YOUNG PROSPECTS
In its annual Future Watch issue, The Hockey News ranked the Leafs’ group of 21-and-under prospects 19th in the league. The year prior to that, they were 23rd. Dubas has been GM only since 2018, so most of his drafts will need time until they are properly evaluated, but this is an organization that has been almost entirely bereft of later-round picks who ended up becoming impact players for them. And, of course, Dubas has almost entirely shelved the long-term future. The Leafs had three picks in 2021 and, as it currently stands, will have three in 2022. And if you’re drafting and developing well, you always have a decent, young third goalie who can fill the breach when either No. 1 or 2 is injured. You shouldn’t have to rely on Michael Hutchinson. Not for this long, anyway.
8. DUBAS’ ANALYTICS APPROACH HAS FAILED
This may be the case, but more likely it represents the failure to stick with a plan. If you’re going to live and die by analytics, then live or die by analytics. But last year, virtually every move Dubas made strayed far from analytics. And again, if those moves had produced impact players, that might have helped them.
9. THE FRANCHISE IS CURSED
Shanahan has done an admirable job of repairing the relationship with the team’s former stars, most notably Larry Hillman, who put a curse on the Leafs after GM Punch Imlach fined him $2,400 during a contract dispute. Shanahan repaid Hillman the amount, plus 50 years of compound interest. The Leafs are most certainly not cursed. In fact, there are a lot of people out there who believe the NHL favors them. (The NHL’s Canadian headquarters is located in the office tower in Scotiabank Arena, which is less than ideal from an optics perspective.) The only thing the Leafs have been cursed with since 1967 is questionable ownership and management.
10. IT’S TOO EARLY TO BE CONCERNED
That’s what Marner, of all people, told reporters in the wake of the loss Saturday night in Pittsburgh. It’s too early to panic. But it’s not too early to be concerned. The Leafs are probably a playoff team based on the division in which they play, but not even the post-season is a guarantee at this point. They’re shooting percentage will undoubtedly improve and their big-money stars will elevate their games. But the Leafs are currently selling a championship team without any proof they can deliver. It’s becoming clear that Dubas has failed. Perhaps Shanahan has, too. Without some impactful on- and off-ice changes, what was once a promising team will go down in Leafs history as just another group that failed to deliver.