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Toronto Maple Leafs: The Window Is Finally Open For The Stanley Cup

By Nick Barden

TORONTO, ON - APRIL 21: John Tavares #91 and Auston Matthews #34 of the Toronto Maple Leafs walk to the ice to play the Boston Bruins in Game Six of the Eastern Conference First Round during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Scotiabank Arena on April 21, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - APRIL 21: John Tavares #91 and Auston Matthews #34 of the Toronto Maple Leafs walk to the ice to play the Boston Bruins in Game Six of the Eastern Conference First Round during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Scotiabank Arena on April 21, 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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The Toronto Maple Leafs have the next five years to win a Stanley Cup.

Whether you like it or not, the Toronto Maple Leafs window of opportunity starts now. With having almost all of their restricted free agents locked up to deals, it’s time to open the window.

A lot of people may say; “the window has been open for a year or so” and yes, you can say it has.

However, John Tavares has only been here for one season and before that, the best players on the team were still young. Even now they’re still young, but this season is where they will have everybody.

Toronto Maple Leafs Window Is Open

This could be the year that we finally see Auston Matthews play a full season, and play on a line with Willam Nylander. We’ve seen what Matthews and Nylander can do together, and it’s something special. If they can take full opportunity of that, this could be a historic season for them.

Finally, the Toronto Maple Leafs defense core has evolved into something that people aren’t stressed about. Adding Tyson Barrie and Cody Ceci, the two right-shot defensemen could help drastically on the right side. Also with the big guns on the left in Morgan Rielly and Jake Muzzin, we shouldn’t see a lot of big goal games, or lopsided affairs in the other teams favour.

I think this year is going to be huge for the defense. If they can keep Frederik Anderson from moving all over the place in almost every game this season, that’s a job well done. I don’t want to see Freddy go down again with another nagging injury and be stressed out going into the playoffs.

With all of the exciting stuff that’s happened during the off-season, there’s still one thing that’s hurting the Leafs opportunity to go on a deep playoff run. And that’s Mitch Marner.

Let’s be real for a second. He’s not going to miss the playoffs, nor is he going to miss this season. But if they go into December with these contract negotiations, we could see Marner have a year like Nylander did. If that happens, there might be no Stanley Cup for Toronto this year.

However, this team and its players know the history. They know what they have to do to win the Stanley Cup and they know how hard it is. This year, both the players and us fans have to take it one series at a time.

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But, if it comes down to facing the Boston Bruins in the first round again. In the wise words of GM Kyle Dubas; we can, and we will – slay the dragon.

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