Toronto Maple Leafs: Some Worst Case Scenarios

The Toronto Maple Leafs are expected to make the playoffs in 2017-18. Let’s just get that out in the open right now.

This team is absolutely loaded upfront. Not only do they have “The Big Three”, but they’ve injected Patrick Marleau into a forward group that’s so stacked, legitimate top 6 forwards can’t nail down a spot for themselves.

Furthermore, the Leafs finally possess a franchise goaltender in Frederik Andersen. Andersen, by the way, is absolutely a top 10 goalie in the league, no matter what NHL.com says. Jonathan Quick at #6? Get out of my face.

Yet in hockey, precisely nothing, save for the Chicago Blackhawks participating in an outdoor game, is guaranteed. No matter how good this team appears to be on paper, the chance exists for things to go wrong. Very, very wrong.

With that said, I am going to do what I do best, and that is being negative. Here are a couple worst case scenarios for this upcoming season.

Rookie Regression

What made the Leafs so offensively dangerous in 2016-17 was that a genuinely lethal offensive player was present on each of the team’s top 3 lines. Such unparalleled depth transformed them into a matchup nightmare.

So, what happens if, let’s say Mitch Marner, for example, produces at 2/3 the rate of last year? Suddenly, the Leafs now have one less forward line producing at an elite offensive rate.

With Marner struggling, opponents begin to shift their focus towards the Auston Matthews’ line. Can Matthews and William Nylander continue scoring at the pace they did in 2016-17 while facing an increased quality of competition?

Last season, the Matthews line began 63% of their shifts in the offensive zone. Such favourable zone starts worked to increase the line’s ability to generate scoring chances, as well as maintain possession.

However, Marner’s line is struggling now. Does Babcock decide to give them the majority of offensive zone starts, in an effort to kick start the lines production? If so, the Matthews line would now be tasked with an increase in defensive zone starts, in order to compensate.

Statistically, it is significantly more difficult to generate offence when beginning a shift in the defensive zone. With that said, Marner’s hypothetical struggles would work to create a domino effect that, in turn, would end up limiting the production of the Matthews line as well.

Suddenly, the Leafs are far less difficult to match up against.

Goalie Depth

During his appearance on the Steve Dangle Podcast, Nick Kypreos stated that the Toronto Maple Leafs will only go as far as Freddie Andersen takes them. Folks, the man could not have been more correct. That said, what happens if Andersen gets seriously injured next year? Where does that leave the Leafs?

Well, it would leave them with the goaltending duo of Curtis McElhinney and Garret Sparks. Yikes.

Trusting Curtis

McElhinney performed reasonably well in 2016-17 after being claimed off waivers by Toronto mid – season. In fact, he made, potentially, the franchises most important save of the last 20 years. Do yourself a favour and watch that clip. Doesn’t it get you jacked up?

All emotion aside, McElhinney exists as a perfectly adequate backup goalie. But as a long term starting option? No thank you.

Hypothetically, let’s say Andersen misses a significant period of the season. Can Sparks and McElhinney handle the load? Nothing in the past performance of either player suggests that they can.

McElhinney boasts a career save percentage of .905%. After weeks of gruelling research, I have come to the scientific conclusion that that’s not very good.

Yes, he did put up a .917% last season. Such a number was due in part to him frequently playing either the second half of back – to – backs, or lower quality of competition.

Of the 6 wins McElhinney earned as a Leaf last season, precisely two of them came against playoff bound teams. Those 2 teams happened to be the Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins.

Ottawa rode a hot goalie along the easiest possible path to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost. Forgive me if beating the sad-sack Bruins and declining Rangers fails to impress me.

Pittsburgh, in their game against McElhinney, happened to be resting just about everyone on their roster. Don’t believe me? Tom Kuhnhackl was in their top six. Not exactly inspiring.

Sparks (not) Flying

In regard to Sparks, there simply is not enough tangible evidence required to evaluate him at the NHL level. All we have to go off of is that he was shelled in 2015-16 during his limited time as an NHL starter. To be fair, he was playing behind a Toronto Maple Leafs team that was actively trying to be bad.

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In fact, you can thank Sparks’ .893% save percentage for landing the Leafs the pick they selected Auston Matthews with.

Deep Breaths

It is important to remember that these are the worst case scenarios.

As a handsome man once wrote, Toronto has become the industry standard for maintaining their player’s health. That should hopefully ease some degree of injury related anxiety.

As a side note, I chose not to write about the Leafs defensive struggles. That dead horse has been beaten for so long it’s turned into jerky.

As the beginning of the NHL approaches, it is only natural to levy some gargantuan expectations upon the Leafs. Heck, I’ve been doing that for all 21 years that I’ve been alive.

If I could parlay one piece of advice, it would be to expect the worst and hope for the best. When “the worst” consists of a team inhabited by generational players, is it really the worst?

Next: Do the Leafs Have their Captain

Especially when “the best” means a Stanley Cup for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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