Toronto Maple Leafs: Atlantic Division Power Rankings

The Toronto Maple Leafs finished third in last year’s Atlantic Division standings.

That’s not quite as bad as bad as it sounds, since the Toronto Maple Leafs finished seventh overall in the entire league.

But if they want to advance beyond the first round, they’re going to need to try and win their division because, due to the strength of the Atlantic vs the NHL’s other three divisions, and because of the NHL’s less than ideal playoff seeding system, the teams that finish second and third in the Atlantic will have the toughest road possible to the Stanley Cup Final.

Winning the division is paramount, but it’s also incredibly difficult.  The Lightning were the best team the NHL has seen in years last season, and the Bruins weren’t far off.

Additionally, Florida, Buffalo and Montreal all seem like they’re on upward trajectories.

The division is top heavy though, because it is also home to the NHL’s two biggest dud teams – the Detroit Red Wings and the Ottawa Senators.

While both teams have started to build nice cores for the future, 2019-20 is almost guaranteed to see them competing for the title of worst team in the NHL.

Though if we’re honest, even though the Red Wings are terrible, even they may seem like the Lightning compared to the Senators.

Ottawa Senators

The Senators finished last in the NHL in 2018-19 and they almost certainly will again.

Last year they won 29 games, which seems bad, but this year they won’t have Mark Stone or Matt Duchene, and they probably won’t even win that many.

Their off season moves defied explanation  – why would they give the Toronto Maple Leafs Cody Ceci (even if he isn’t an ideal player to pay $4.5 ) in exchange for both Brown and Zaitsev?

It seemed weird that the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t have to give them something extra to get out from those contracts.

Beyond that – Ron Hainsey?  OK whatever. Who am I to question the genius of the franchise that couldn’t even turn Erik Karlsson, Matt Duchene or Mark Stone into a single blue-chip prospect?

The Senators are going to be brutal and it will be surprising if they can ever move beyond the 8th spot in these rankings, but they do already have a pretty nice core in place.

Thomas Chabot, Brady Tkachuk are both going to be star players, and Eric Brannstrom and Drake Batherson are just two of a half dozen or so nice prospects they’ve managed to stock their system with.

Detroit Red Wings

If Karma was real, the Red Wings would never be good again as punishment for their city inflicting Kid Rock onto the world.

Fortunately for them, it’s not going to matter, and they’ll probably going to be good again pretty soon.

The Red Wings have Steve Yzerman in charge now, and if he continues to be one of the best GMs in the NHL they’ll be in good hands.

They’ve already got a nice core of Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha and Filip Hronek looks like he could be pretty good too.

Filip Zadina should be a regular this year and could compete for the Calder Trophy.  Still, the Red Wings roster is terrible, and it’s not entirely impossible they’ll be worse than Ottawa.

That would take  a lot, but either way, they’re almost certainly going to be picking early next year.

Buffalo Sabres

The Sabres finished 20 points back of Montreal who didn’t even make the Playoffs last year.

The Sabres probably don’t have a good chance to make the playoffs this year.  They aren’t impressive in net, they aren’t deep at forward or on the blue line.

But they could surprise.

They’ve got a very nice set of building blocks in Jack Eichel and Rasmus Dahlin, and several players who, if they are as good as advertised could make the Sabres a very strong team.

If Jeff Skinner continues to be an elite scorer, while Casey Middlestat and Sam Rienhart continue to improve, the Sabres could surprise.

I have no idea if top prospect Dylan Cozen makes their team, but if he does the Sabres have the upside of a possible six elite players.   It’s not likely that happens this year, but when it does, all they’ll need is decent goaltending to be good.

For now, they’ll have to be content to start in sixth. I don’t think they’ll stay so low for long, however, because Dahlin and Eichel alone could get them into the playoffs.

Those two are upper echelon superstars, and you can’t count a team with two of the best players in the league completely out of it.  If Dahlin takes the quantum leap forward that he is capable of making, look out.

It’s probably not going to happen for them this year, but still, with Montreal and Ottawa years away from contention, the Toronto Maple Leafs can at least count on one of their main rivals being good sooner than later.

Montreal Canadiens

I think we’ll see the Canadians lose ground this year to the Sabres.  This is as high as I predict Montreal goes in these rankings.

The Canadiens have Carey Price who is still the best overall goalie in the NHL, and who probably should have won last year’s Vezina.

But that’s about all they got.

They have some really nice prospects, but they are lacking elite players currently.

Shea Weber is awesome, but we can’t just assume he’s going to defy aging forever.  Max Domi and Tomas Tatar stand to regress big-time and Jonathan Druin – while incredibly talented – doesn’t seem to be as good as looks like he could be.

Barring a big breakout from Jesperi Kotkaniemi, I don’t see a lot to love on this roster. I think they over achieved last year and will be closer to Detroit and Ottawa than Toronto and Tampa this year.

This ranking is a courtesy because they did just finish one point behind the Leafs last year.  I could see them finishing behind Detroit, maybe.

Boston Bruins

The Bruins finished second last year, and they almost won the Stanley Cup.

They are, however, not even close to being as good as the Toronto Maple Leafs.  The Bruins went on one of the luckiest runs last year when they went something like 17 games straight with a point.

That put them way higher in the standings than they truly deserved to be, and due to some late season Leafs injuries allowed them to steal home ice.

But it didn’t matter, they still needed to score seven power play goals in a seven game series (no team averaged a PP goal per game in the regular season), get the help of refs in game two (one of the worst refereed professional sports events in history), and a Kadri suspension in order to win.

Any objective person can look at last year’s first round series and know the Bruins were lucky to beat the Leafs.  Now the Leafs best players will all be a year closer to their peak seasons while the Bruins will be another year away from theirs.

I fully expect Boston to be a decent team, but their days as a powerhouse are over.

Toronto Maple Leafs

I think the Toronto Maple Leafs will win the Atlantic, along with the President’s Trophy (which they should really rename) and the Stanley Cup.

I believe that I am being objective when I say that, and when I say I think Matthews can score 60, William Nylander can win the scoring title, and that they are the best team assembled in the salary cap era.

They’ve got everything:

Two legit #1 centres, three #1 defenseman, a star D on the rise (Dermott), and a top-five player in the league at every position, save left wing.

They’re stacked, and they’ve not even come close to their potential.

Last year they didn’t dress a fully healthy optimal lineup for a single game. They almost did once, and Kadri got hurt in the first period.  They shot a pathetic 12% on the power-play despite being the best in the NHL in all the stats that tend to determine success on the power-play.

Additionally, they were only 6-5 in one-goal games.  Oh, and one of their best players, Nylander, was sabotaged by shooting percentages so badly that people actually started to think he was a bad player.

The Leafs are going to crush teams with their borderline unfair lineup.  It’s going to be really fun and I can’t wait.

Tampa Bay Lightning

I begrudgingly rank Tampa #1 in these here power rankings, but only because I have to.

They won the division by 20 odd points.  They were one of the best teams to ever play an NHL regular season.  Their unfortunate (and just plain unlucky) first round exit not withstanding, they’re an amazing team.

But let’s be realistic:  their PP shooting percentage is not going to be that high again, and neither will their record in one goal games.  Even a team twice as good as Tampa would need incredible luck to win as many games in a row as they did last year at one point, and that’s not gonna happen again either.

The Lightning are a great team with a  great roster. But they had their fun, and now it’s time for the Leafs to take over.

Last season they were probably a lot more equal to the Toronto Maple Leafs than the stats suggested, and that will be proven this year when the Leafs dismantle them (and everyone else).

Enjoy the #1 ranking Tampa, cause it’s probably the only one you’ll get this year.