David Alter: Are the Recent Leafs Changes Enough?
Eight consecutive years of identical results, a change is expected. But in what direction? David Alter gives his input.
The Toronto Maple Leafs made a bit of an unthinkable change earlier this month when John Tavares handed over the captaincy that he had held for five season and handed it over to No.34. It’s not that the player doesn’t deserve the captaincy, he most certainly does. It’s just a rare situation where you see a veteran like Tavares agree to be part of this process. Typically, teams wait until that player is no longer with the club before making the switch, but it’s clear that Tavares, who is an unrestricted free agent, wants to come back. So if the change was going to happen, now was the time and it was done with as little controversy as possible given the way the Leafs had handled it.
But once you move away from that leadership switch, then comes the bigger message. The Leafs core is not changing, and they are essentially running it back for yet another season with the new captain, Tavares, William Nylander and Mitch Marner.
Like Tavares, Marner has a year remaining on his contract before he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Both players hold full no-move clauses and essentially control their fate for the upcoming season.
Did the Leafs have a deal on the table for Marner? If something ever did come to the table, it was substantial enough where they felt they’d be winning that trade. The terms of Marner’s deal make it somewhat impossible to move and surely any trade would likely see the Thornhill native be the best player in the deal.
So hence. The voices in the room change. The two loudest voices in any locker room are arguably the head coach and the captain of the team. The Leafs have now changed that. In May, they brough in 2019 Stanley Cup-winning head coach Craig Berube just days after relieving Sheldon Keefe of his duties.
Is it enough?
It’s hard to argue the talent of Toronto’s core forwards. The Leafs improved the defense with a few defensive additions like Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. And there is a reasonable argument to be made that No. 34, Marner and Nylander are about to enter their prime years of their respective careers. So they should be better.
The problem is the Leafs have already been good. They’ve been one of the best regular season teams over the last eight years and hold a tie for the longest active playoff streak with the Boston Bruins at eight years running. But in the eight years they’ve been to playoffs, they have won just one playoff round (defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2023).
The Leafs are really capable of anything. Outside of making it as a wild card team in 2017, Toronto hasn’t struggled to make the playoffs at all. Could this year be different with all of the changes? Perhaps. It’s harder and harder to make the playoffs these days with 16 of 32 teams getting in. The teams that have won Stanley Cups in recent years have struggled to make it to the playoffs in years leading up to it. In 2022, the Vegas Golden Knights missed the playoffs for the first time in their history before winning the Stanley Cup in the following year.
If everything goes right, the Maple Leafs could contend for a Stanley Cup. But we’ve said that every year. It seems like they are due for a regression to the mean of some kind. It’s highly unlikely they are going to have another first-round exit. They’ll either buck the trend by going deep, or missing the dance altogether.
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