Toronto Maple Leafs: the Core Philosophy

The Toronto Maple Leafs are definite Cup Contenders.

Lately, there has been a lot of debate about the Toronto Maple Leafs short term vs long term strategies.

You see some people saying that the Leafs – because of an unusual convergence of factors – should be going all-in to win now.

You see other people saying that a team should build for the future in order to remain competitive long-term. These people blow a gasket if you suggest trading Timothy Liljegren or a first round pick.

Now vs Then

In the NHL, the most successful team since the introduction of the salary cap has been the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins have traded their first round draft picks (or the player they selected before he could play for them) in eight of twelve years since then.

What the Penguins did was identify a core group and then work to surround them with the best possible players every year. Inevitably, come the trade deadline (or often in the summer) the Penguins would be mortgaging their future for the present.

But they did it for basically 12 years. That’s like three or four cycles of ‘the future’ by NHL standards. One reason the Penguins were able to do this is because they understand that if you put any halfway talented forward with Malkin and Crosby, they will be successful.

The NHL has a tendency to draft for size, position (centre and defense) and character. This allows highly skilled but flawed players to drop to subsequent rounds. Do you want an under six foot, speedy winger with no chance of ever being a captain? If so, you can have as many as you want in the second and third rounds of every draft.

Knowing these players are practically free, the Penguins trade their first rounders to stack their team and then plug and play with small, fast, low or undrafted players.

It literally works every time. Over the years, they’ve brought in Ziggy Palffy, Marian Hossa, James Neale, Jerome Iginla, Nick Bonino, Derek Brassard, Phil Kessel, Bill Guerin, Kris Kunitz, Pascal Dupois, Gary Roberts etc.

Satisfied with their core of Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Fleury and Letang, the Penguins were able to use this move for over a decade to appear in four Stanley Cup Finals, win three Stanley Cups, and be a contender for twelve straight playoff appearances.

They were also able to pivot when necessary, eventually swapping out Staal and Fleury for Matt Murray and Phil Kessel.

If you think it’s too early for the Leafs to do this, remember this: The Penguins started this strategy in Crosby’s third year, with a team worse than the Leafs are now, when they traded their top prospect and a first round pick for two months of Marian Hossa.

Toronto Maple Leafs

The Leafs could learn a lot from the Penguins, as their situations are somewhat similar.

The Leafs have a core of Matthews-Tavares-Nylander-Marner-Rielly and Andersen. They can keep this core together for a decade and plug and play the rest of it.

Sure, in a fantasy world you’re adding new first-round picks every year that graduate to your team, with low costs and high ceilings, it’s a never ending party. And they always work out.

In reality, that is too volatile and unpredictable to work as a long term strategy. If you trade those picks for players you know are good now, it is going to work out for you at a much higher probability. There is just no way to win in the NHL if you are not willing to trade your first-round draft picks and your top prospects. (Which you do after you’ve got your core in place, obviously).

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You can have cheap prospects graduating, but they don’t need to be first rounders. In fact, it’s essential that they aren’t. The Penguins know that if you put a small fast winger with Crosby, it’s going to work every time. Small fast wingers are available with any second or third round pick. Daniel Sprong, Connor Sheary, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust. I could go on. Each is a low pick (or undrafted), under six foot winger the Penguins paired with one of their tentpole players.

They get value for high picks, and manufacture value out of their low picks. Jeremy Bracco isn’t a very highly rated prospect, but I’m sure eventually the Leafs will pair him with Tavares or Matthews because he’s the type of player almost guaranteed to be successful if you give him a star centre.

The way the NHL works demands teams do this. The Cap prevents you from having long term commitments to every player, so you have to identify five or six core players and then use the fact that teams overpay for “name” prospects and first rounders.

Then you take advantage of the fact that your two elite centremen make every fast/somewhat skilled winger look like Pavel Bure, and you then get to have a) a constant influx of short-term star players who will come and go and b) a pipeline of cheap wingers to fill out your team. You also get the bonus of you can then trade those players for more help when they breakout and score a bunch of goals (see Sheary, Connor).

The Penguins are the absolute best run team in the NHL. (Jack Johnson signing not withstanding). They are masters of the salary cap and the “core” player philosophy.

I would bet almost anything you’ll see the Leafs eventually copying them, which means you should not get too attached to players like Liljegren, Dermott and Sandin.