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Toronto Maple Leafs: Are We Too Used To Losing?

By Tim Chiasson |
Jan 1, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews (34) during their game against the Detroit Red Wings during the Centennial Classic ice hockey game at BMO Field. The Maple Leafs beat the Red Wings 5-4 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 1, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews (34) during their game against the Detroit Red Wings during the Centennial Classic ice hockey game at BMO Field. The Maple Leafs beat the Red Wings 5-4 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

The Toronto Maple Leafs are playing great hockey, and getting results because of it – so why does the fanbase need to temper everything related to success?

Everything around the Toronto Maple Leafs is patience, even though the team has arrived already.

Is it because the Leafs have been bad for so long? Or that there’s some sort of written-in-stone rule that a rebuild has to take five+ years that no one knows about?

If you google ‘patience’ this is what you get:

“The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.”

The Leafs aren’t delayed, in trouble or suffering. Patience is an irrelevant term that’s being applied to this group.

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Let’s take the Oilers – I know, it’s the Oilers but hear me out – for example. Here’s a team that has been in a constant grip of rebuilding for a decade, but do repeated bad decisions qualify as rebuilding? When the Oilers drafted a star named Connor McDavid in 2015 they had a bad season and got another top pick. This year they’re looking like a playoff team.

Toronto drafted Auston Matthews in 2016 and are having success immediately, but they also made a significant selection in McDavid’s 2015 year: Mitch Marner.

Let’s take a look at three forwards and two defenders who are top players on the Oilers and their ages:

20 (McDavid)

21 (Draisaitl)

21 (Nurse)

23 (Klefbom)

23 (Nugent-Hopkins)

Now let’s look at three forwards and two defenders from the Leafs and their ages:

19 (Matthews)

19 (Marner)

26 (Kadri)

22 (Rielly)

26 (Gardiner)

Why are the Oilers considered finished rebuilding and the Leafs aren’t? The Leafs have a deeper pool of talent beyond their top two stars (Marner, Matthews) than the Oilers do with theirs (McDavid, Draisaitl). If the Oilers are done, the Leafs are definitely done if we’re comparing the use of the word “rebuilding”.

Leafs Nation should no longer be content with losing when they have a team that can win. There’s no need to downplay the expectations for this group. They’re proving that everyone’s expectations were too low – and that’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing.

But What About The Chicago/Pittsburgh Model?

This is a thing that comes up.

The go to response to not being patient is to follow the Blackhawks or the Penguins, so let’s take a look at a couple facts about those two teams.

  • Pittsburgh went to the Stanley Cup Final in Sidney Crosby’s final year of his ELC, and won it the next.
  • When the Penguins won the Cup in 08-09, it was Evgeni Malkin’s final year of his ELC. That’s two trips to the finals in Malkin’s ELC.
  • The Penguins didn’t win the Cup again, or get back to the finals, for seven years.
  • The Chicago Blackhawks went to the Conference Finals in Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane’s second year of their ELC’s.
  • In Toews and Kane’s final year of their ELC’s, the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. They were able to win two more in the following five years because Chicago beat the salary cap (Hossa/Keith) better than anyone before the new CBA.

So, if we’re following the Blackhawks and Penguins models, shouldn’t the rebuild be over and ‘patience’ be a thing that we only require while driving in traffic?

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