Toronto Maple Leafs: Stanley Cup Contender Status

How close are the Toronto Maple Leafs to contention?

The Toronto Maple Leafs are currently in year two of a three year window in which they will have several elite (or close to elite) players on cheap (relative to the salary cap) entry-level contracts. Additionally, they have  several core star  players on team friendly contracts (Gardiner, Kadri, Rielly, Andersen, Komarov, JVR).  During this window, the Leafs (theoretically, at least) have an unprecedented opportunity to load their team up with more talent than can usually be fit in under the salary cap.

While it may seem weird for a team that was still ‘rebuilding’ as recently as a year ago, it is important to note that both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks made the Stanley Cup Finals while Kane/Toews and Malkin/Crosby were on their entry-level deals.

The Toronto Maple Leafs as Contenders

If the Leafs are to follow in the footsteps of the Penguins and Blackhawks, they have to make the Final this year or next year.  How close are they to being able to do that?

While I don’t think the Leafs are blue-chip contenders at this point, I don’t think they’re very far off either.  At this point, it is difficult to judge the team because they seem incomplete at this moment. They currently have several extra forwards, a potentially bad fourth line, and are short at least one top-four defenseman (though it could be argued what they really need is a super-star #1 type defesenman).

In my opinion, the Leafs are close, but currently not quite worthy of “Contender Status.”  To be contenders, the Leafs need the following:

1. Three First-Line Worthy Centres

It’s not secret that the Penguins, since 2009, have made the Finals in 100% of the season where they had a healthy Crosby-Malkin-Staal/Bonino centre combo.  By throwing out essentially three first-line centres, the Penguins are guaranteed to get a match-up edge in virtually every game.

In the NHL, getting an edge – let alone a consistent one – is very rare.  When the Toronto Maple Leafs are running Matthews-Nylander-Kadri down the middle, they’ll have achieved the 3 x #1 centre status and be one of the hardest teams in the NHL to play.

In fact, with Bonino moving on and the Oilers seemingly intent to keep Draisaitl on McDavid’s wing, there is a very good chance that the Matthews-Kadri-Nylander combo could be the best 1-2-3 punch in the NHL.  While their are other ways to compete, being the deepest team down the middle is a massive advantage.

But, until they unload Bozak and his horrendous defense, this just isn’t happening.

1. Improve Defense

No team intentionally playing Ron Hainsey in their top-four is a playoff lock, let alone a contender.  Keep in mind that no one without an obvious motive for talking up the signing has said anything good about the supposed plan to play a 36 year-old declining defenseman in the team’s top four.

The Leafs could go a long way to making it as a Cup Contender if they were to acquire a top four defenseman such as Josh Demers or Chris Tanev.  Should they pay the price to acquire a potential #1 like Jakub Trouba, they’d be instant contenders.

1. Improve Team Defense

The Toronto Maple Leafs scored almost at will last year.  They have strong special teams, good goaltending, are well coached, and have a ton of lineup depth.

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But their biggest weakness is team defense.  The Leafs were terrible at holding leads last year, and while a lot of that is probably just bad luck, they were almost comically bad at it – blowing upwards of 15 games after the second period, in a league where a win is almost a guarantee if you go to the dressing room up after two.

The biggest reason for this was a lack of team defense.  The Leafs were playing Polak and Hunwick regularly, they had Ben Smith, Tyler Bozak and Frederick Guathier playing for much of the year.  They had nine rookies in the lineup and often used the horrible defensive pairing of Zaitsev and Reilly against the best other teams had to offer.   It’s no wonder they were second worst in the NHL in 5v5 shots-allowed per game.

This year, the team should have a different top pairing, presumably they’ll make a move to improve the defense before the season begins, and there will be less rookies.  They still, however, are missing the key ingredient of defensively responsible forwards.

In order to improve their team defense, the team will be looking to Kasperi Kapanen to bring some speed and defense to the forward group, but even beyond that, I’d say they need at least one more highly effect shot-suppressing forward to really be a championship calibre team.

Conclusion

The Toronto Maple Leafs are not currently contenders for the Stanley Cup.  They are tantalizingly close though.  If they move Nylander to centre, improve their blue-line and acquire another defensively responsible forward, the team will instantly become one of the best teams in the NHL.

Next: More on Marleau

The best part? With all their draft picks, multiple extra forwards and quite a bit  of cap flexibility, there is every reason to believe they can be contenders this season.