Comparing Toronto Maple Leafs to Past 10 Stanley Cup Champions

#9. Final Thoughts

By evaluating the last decade of winners, it’s easy to see that the Leafs are close to assembling a championship team.

However, there is was one more main theme that came with every winner. The winning team averaged 3.6 20-plus goal scorers and the highest goal-scorer averaged 33 goals per season. The highest goal scoring player on any Cup winning team was Alex Ovechkin, who had 49 goals, which was actually a down-year for him.

On the Leafs current roster, they have eight players who can score 20 goals every year: Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares, Kasperi Kapanen, Andreas Johnsson, Zach Hyman and Morgan Rielly.

Although that’s not a bad thing to score a lot of goals, compared to the other Stanley Cup winners, the team has too much scoring. Obviously Matthews, Tavares, Marner and Nylander aren’t going anywhere, but Kapanen, Johnsson and Hyman are all expendable if you compare them to other championship teams.

Also, if the Toronto Maple Leafs are able to shed some offense, it should help them gain defense, which is much more valuable come playoff-time.

The Leafs have almost every category covered and are extremely close to finally winning a Stanley Cup. However, by examining the last decade, it’s clear that a few offensive pieces must be traded in order for the team to get over the hump.