I Can’t Find One Single Reason Not to Be Optimistic About the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are having an exciting year.

From the firing of Mike Babcock to William Nylander trolling the sad part of the fan base with his super-fantastic ascension to the NHL’s elite, this Toronto Maple Leafs season has been a non-stop thrill ride.

Sure you’ve had to sit through injuries to Tavares, Marner, Hyman, Dermott, Rielly, Muzzin and Mikheyev, but those have also allowed the likes of Justin Holl and Pierre Engvall to earn a spot in our hearts.

I suppose some people imagine that the Leafs would just win easily and go 82 and oh, but I really do feel like this season has been a really fun one, despite the struggle in the standings, there’s really nothing to complain about.

The Leafs young core of superstars is locked up and crushing it.

They’ve discovered Ilya Mikheyev.

Optimism Should Abound for the Toronto Maple Leafs

We’ve seen Matthews and Marner get combined into some kind of Power Ranger of scoring.  And the team is scoring about sixteen goals every night.

An offensive team, featuring a progressive coach and GM who emphasize offense and creativity, that is fun to watch every single night is basically everything I’ve always wanted.

The three things that people complain the most about aren’t even really problems.

 The Toronto Maple Leafs need a back up goalie

This may be true, but if your biggest complaint about a team is their back-up goalie, they must be a damn good team.  It’s not a real problem.  It’s basically someone who owns a Mercedes needing to touch up a tiny spot of paint.

 The Toronto Maple Leafs need to be better at defense/be more physical

Also not a real problem.  If you are concerned that a 31 year old GM wants to completely changed the game you’ve watched for sixty years, I get it.  Change is weird.

But the facts are that while the Leafs give up a lot of chances, they get a lot more than they give up.  Whether you focus exclusively on offense, or defense, that is the how games are won.

It doesn’t make sense to have six of the most talented offensive players in the world and then bottle up their creativity.  If anything, the Leafs are too conservative and should be trying to score nine goals per game instead of just five or six.

What I would say to any Leafs fan is that they need five more Tyson Barries, not one less.

The Toronto Maple Leafs spent all their money

Yeah, and they spent it well.  The Leafs might be the only team in the league without a prohibitively bad long-term contract.

The Leafs don’t waste money on mid-range expensive players who don’t return value either, and they know that certain kinds of league minimum players are extremely undervalued.

This allows them to do things no one thought possible, like not only sign the “big three,” but to also sign Johnsson and Kapanen as well.

Face it: this team is great, and only getting better.

If not for a five game stretch without their two best defensemen, they would almost certainly be the NHL’s best team since they hired coach Sheldon Keffe.  For now they are “just” the third.

The only way to feel about the Toronto Maple Leafs right now is optimistic. They’ve still got one of the youngest teams in the league.

Despite drafting high and reaping the rewards, the Leafs have two awesome top prospects that could very well turn into stars.

The Leafs are the 5th youngest team in the NHL.  They have no bad contracts and every game they play is exciting.

Auston Matthews has 20 goals in his last 21 games.

Mitch Marner is tied for second 5v5 and total points since he came back from his injury.

And you get to watch these two play together, every single night.

The Toronto Maple Leafs might not win this year, but also,  they might.

Even if they don’t, they are starting to build something extremely special, and it’s already amazingly fun to watch.  (All stats from naturalstattrick.com).

This is the most exciting, most fun to watch team that I have seen the Leafs put on the ice.  I do not know how a single person can have a single critical word to say about the team in any way, shape or form.

I have been waiting since I was six years old for the Leafs to ice a team like this, and I have to say, maybe it’s just the internet, but I find it weird that people don’t seem more excited.