Compared to sky high expectations entering the season, the Toronto Maple Leafs have had a disappointing season so far this year.
Whether the Toronto Maple Leafs season resumes or not, it’ll be impossible to argue it hasn’t been one for the history books.
Controversy was in no short supply for the NHL, in general, this year.
At one point it seemed like it was impossible to go a week without a coach getting fired, sins of the past being brought to public light, or some other form of controversy.
In Toronto, it started with the Marner contract negotiations and as soon as that situation died down, something else sprang up.
From there, a cycle began of nonstop negativity, right up to the stoppage of play. All in all, I feel like it was the most miserable season to watch play out since the pre-Shanahan era.
The season has been a nonstop trial by fire for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The highs were few and the lows have stung just as bad as a Game Seven loss to the Bruins.
Let’s review some of the more disappointing aspects of the season that was.
3. Group Compete Effort
NHL seasons are long and grueling affairs.
There’s a reason they say the Stanley Cup is the hardest trophy to win in professional sports. No team is going to operate at 100% of their capability for 82 games plus playoffs.
For the Toronto Maple Leafs, it seemed as though their effort level just wasn’t there on more nights than usual.
Early in the season, it was clear that the majority of the group were simply done with playing Babcock’s outdated systems, but even long after he was just a memory, many winnable games got away from them.
I mean, this team lost to a 42-year-old zamboni driver who’s employed by MLSE, do I really have to say more than that?
2. Roster Was Never Unleashed
Between nonstop injuries, questionable Babcock decisions, the lack of a capable backup goalie until early February, and some of the worst play I’ve ever seen from a Leafs defenceman, this team, never fully operated at 100%.
Significant injuries to core members of the team, like Morgan Rielly, Zach Hyman and Jake Muzzin severely limited lineup options for both Mike Babcock and Sheldon Keefe.
Babcock further limited his options for icing a successful team due to his outdated, set-in-stone methods of icing a team, more on him shortly.
With so much of the future still unclear, we may never see how this roster was supposed to operate, and cap restrictions will call for some changes to the way teams are constructed.
The Leafs still haven’t dressed their ideal healthy lineup for a single game since before the team traded for Jake Muzzin last year.
1. Mike Babcock
It is my opinion that Mike Babcock’s firing came seven months too late.
As the final moments of Game Seven trickled down and I saw the husk of Patrick Marleau on the ice as opposed to Matthews, Marner or Tavares, all my already-wavering faith in the coach evaporated in an instant.
In the immediate aftermath of that game, after five minutes with my head down, staring at my hands and a table I was sitting at, I looked up at my friend’s faces and said, furiously but calmly, “Mike Babcock is done in Toronto. They will not win with him behind the bench.”
By the end of the discussion that followed I made a bet that he would not be the coach by Christmas. I guess I nailed that prediction.
If my belief in Babcock had not gone away, his attitude right from day one of training camp would have started to raise questions.
From just a few short media scrums, it became painfully obvious that this was the same old Babcock as in years past.
His trademark stubbornness to change and adapt (like he promised to do at the end of season availability last year) quickly reared its ugly head, from the treatment of Jason Spezza to some truly head-scratching decisions on the usage and deployment of players like Cody Ceci, Nick Shore, and Tyson Barrie, just to name a few.
Even after he left the team, he was able to cast one more shadow over the season, with the news about his past treatment of players, including Mitch Marner, coming into the light of day cast a cloud over the whole season.
If he had been let go before the season began and Sheldon Keefe had the entire year to implement the systems that he and Kyle Dubas rode to a Calder Cup, who knows where this team would be sitting in the standings right now?
Mike Babcock was the biggest disappointment of this season.