The Tale of the Maple Leafs Rebuild
On August 9th the Maple Leafs were eliminated from the NHL Play in round, the first time they didn’t technically make the playoffs in four years. Many fans, and even media, are calling for heads. There is talk of shopping everyone, with the exception of Auston Matthews.
Now make no mistake, as a die hard Leafs fan for around 47 years now I was disappointed too, I wanted this team to move on, to quiet the naysayers and to perhaps even vie for Lord Stanley’s Cup.
But let’s think about this for a few minutes, put our emotions and disappointment aside and really think about it. As I said I have been a fan of this team for going on five decades now, and one thing I can say all those decades had in common was impatient fans and management. Management that was always striving for NOW and giving up the future for it, but never getting there.
This team was a last place team just five short years ago. Mike Babcock assured us “there will be pain”.
Four years ago Auston Matthews was an 18 year old rookie, Marner a 19 year old rookie many thought was too small to play in the NHL that year and William Nylander was a 20 year old with a grand total of 22 NHL games under his belt.
At the beginning of the 2016–17 season none of us expected much, and if you say you did you’re probably lying. We expected marginal improvements over the previous year while the kids got their feet wet. Maybe they’d be exciting, maybe they’d win some games, but no one actually expected them to be good.
Then the magical happened, all around the media and social media you started hearing “The Leafs are actually good!”. And they were. Ninety five points, and a last second last game playoff berth.
Facing the President’s Trophy winning Capitals they fought hard to six games, most were expecting a sweep.
The next year resulted in a franchise record 105 points and a third place Atlantic finish, seventh in the entire NHL. But they were facing an experienced Bruins team. Yet again they didn’t cave, they took the series to seven games before bowing out.
2018–19 saw more of the same, 100 points, 3rd in the Atlantic, 7th in the NHL and the same damn Bruins playoff match up. Again bowing out in 7 hard fought games.
What else was the same in those two series? Nazem Kadri getting himself suspended in both. The first series as our second line centre, the second series as our third line centre. A crucial player making stupid and selfish plays. Sorry, I love Naz too, but you call it as it is, and those were selfish plays.
On to 2020… oh what a 2020 it’s been. The seasons stopped after 70 games because of COVID-19. The longest “off season” in recent history. A new and confusing playoff format that allowed 24 teams and forced 16 of them to play a best 3 of 5 series just to make the playoffs.
Not normal by anyone’s standards. It’s really hard to count 2020 when evaluating anything to be honest, and that should be part of the conversation.
So Let’s Recap
The Toronto Maple Leafs started a full bottom up rebuild 5 years ago. ONE year into that rebuild they made the playoffs, and have done so every year since, barring this weird year where they were in a playoff spot when play stopped.
Their 3 young superstars are 22, 23, and 24 years old. Only Nylander is really in his prime by today’s standards and at the beginning of his prime.
Why Can’t They Win a Series?
My honest opinion? They’re still learning how. That isn’t an excuse, they haven’t “had long enough”. We are literally FOUR years into a total ground up rebuild. No, we are not rebuilding still, the rebuild is done. But what if they had have played the way we expected? What if they had have missed the playoffs that first year or even two? I doubt too many would have freaked out, they were kids after all, we really didn’t expect them to be good.
Their biggest downfall was being good FAST. That grew unrealistic expectations from the fans. They went from “maybe they’ll be okay” to “they should vie for the cup now” immediately, within one single season people had that expectation, and frankly that’s nuts.
I am not saying this team, as it’s built will win a cup. There are deficiencies on defense obviously that need to be addressed. The bottom six is probably good enough, perhaps actually a bit too good as silly as that sounds, but it means they can tweak and move players without sacrificing the stars to do it.
Moving Forward
We need to understand and remember how young this core is, and how short a time they’ve really been together. We also need to understand that they aren’t bangers and crashers, and the NHL with their shitty two rule books, one for the regular season and one for the playoffs doesn’t favour those teams, but they CAN win. I am 100% convinced that without the Kadri suspensions they knock off the Bruins both times they played them.
Are they contenders now? Probably not. Are they close? Yes I believe they are, and I am so very done with management teams that trade away young talent because of panic mode that I don’t want that any more, not the elite, not our core. These kids are too good, and saying they can’t learn to win in the playoffs and dig deep is profoundly stupid.
You can with the Cup with talent and some decent role players, Pittsburgh did it twice in a row. We need a solid defense, not a star defense. As nice as a Parayko or Slavin would be, you don’t have to have that. You can do it with workman like players and that is what the Leafs need to surround that top 6 with.
