Toronto Maple Leafs Will Win the East

Toronto Maple Leafs Will Win the Eastern Conference this year.

The NHL’s most exciting young team is poised to take the next step.  The Toronto Maple Leafs jumped from 30th place to make the Playoffs, where they nearly beat the NHL’s best team.   This year they are going to take another huge step forward.

The NHL is in transition.  For a long time, the Capitals, Penguins, Blackhawks, Canucks, Bruins and Kings dominated the NHL.  It’s been years since a Stanley Cup Final didn’t feature at least one of the Penguins, Hawks or Kings.   But all those teams have declined from what they were, even the Penguins, and it’s time for a new team to take the reigns.

Enter the Toronto Maple Leafs

Technically a second-year player is not longer a “prospect” but the Leafs still have so many players that haven’t even scratched the surface of their talent that I don’t think the lack of quality upgrades made over the summer is going to matter much.

The likes of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Connor Brown, Mitch Marner, Connor Carrick, Zach Hyman, Nikita Zaitsev and Morgan Rielly are all getting better.  That’s insane.

Add in guys like Kapanen and the Leafs will just get better due to the passage of time.

Additionally, they still maintain a core of in their prime players – Andersen, Gardiner, JVR, Komarov and Kadri – that makes then incredibly deep.

Sure, they were terrible defensively, but with a great coach, a bunch of young players and team speed unrivaled by anyone else in hockey, that might not even be much of an issue.  I mean, of course a team with nine rookies will have some defensive problems.

But by the same token, a team with nine sophomores should improve automatically.

Deepest Team in Hockey

Even though we’ve fretted about a lack of defensive upgrades and the team’s lack of a #1 elite defenseman, the Leafs are actually in good shape on the blue-line.

Rielly, Gardiner and Zaitsev make up a dream-team of puck-moving, fast skating defenseman.  What they lack in a true-number-one is made up for by having three number-twos.

Then there is Dermott, Neilson, Liljegren, Rosen and Borgman. The Leafs are looking for the Duncan Keith/Kris Letang and one of those guys is probably going to fit the bill.  While the team looks to develop an elite defenseman, they still have a relative deep blueline.

More from Editor In Leaf

• Toronto Maple Leafs: Nick Robertson Healthy and Ready
• Ryan Reaves Will Have Zero Impact on Toronto Maple Leafs
• Toronto Maple Leafs: Playing Max Domi In Top-Six a HUGE Mistake
• Top 10 Scandals in the History of the Toronto Maple Leafs
• Toronto Maple Leafs: Results from the Traverse City Prospects Tournament

On forward, I don’t think any team in hockey has a player like Kapanen who might not be on the team.  What other team is going to enter the season without a spot for their highest scoring player in terms of points per minute of ice-time? (That’s Leivo, by the way)?

Review

The Toronto Maple Leafs are fast, deep, talented, have upwards of three franchise forwards, an all-star worthy goalie and the best coach in hockey.  Not to mention a bunch of lineup competition.

Oh and there is one more thing:  the Leafs lost 15 + games after leading into the third period last year.  Their OT and Shootout record was atrocious.  But in the NHL, leading after two gives you something like a 90% chance to win and, mathematically, once the game goes beyond regulation, it’s a coin flip as to who wins.  With just a neutral amount of luck, the Leafs would have finished much higher last season.

Next: Ranking Everything Toronto Maple Leafs Related

Expect them to do so this season.