Top 5 Least Memorable Toronto Maple Leafs Moments This Year
The Toronto Maple Leafs season is over and although they made the post-season, it wasn’t all fun and games.
This season had high-hopes for the Toronto Maple Leafs and although it’s already June, those hopes are still intact.
When the regular season stopped for the Maple Leafs with 12 games remaining, it was initially expected that those games would be played. However, as time passed and a return to normal wasn’t an option, the NHL announced that the regular season was over and a 24-team post-season would ensue at a time to be determined.
Before the season, almost every hockey expert predicted that the Leafs would make the playoffs.
Some listed them first in the Atlantic with high predictions that they would win the Stanley Cup, while others had them as Wild Card team.
Although pre-season predictions are almost impossible, most thought the Leafs would finish behind the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning in the standings, which is exactly what happened.
For a more experienced Toronto Maple Leafs team, making the playoffs shouldn’t be considered an accomplishment anymore. The team is too talented to miss the playoffs and is currently in a window where they have a legitimate chance at winning a Stanley Cup.
With that window getting more narrow with every season, there were a number of times throughout the 2019-20 regular season where the playoffs seemed in question.
Here are the top-five least memorable moments of the season.
#5. California Road Trip
“California, Love!”
As the Leafs headed west for their only California road-trip of the season, that song was definitely playing upon take-off.
The Leafs had just won three games in a row and were off to face three of the worst teams in the Western Conference.
For years, the California road-trip was one of the hardest trips in hockey. Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose were three power-house teams in the Western Conference and were typically the top three seeds in the Pacific Division.
Both the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings have won Stanley Cups in the past 15 years, while San Jose has made a Stanley Cup Final and is probably the best NHL franchise not to win a Stanley Cup over the past 20 years.
After three straight wins and feeling good, many thought six points were on the horizon for the Leafs.
Anytime you can leave Toronto and head south in the wintertime is a blessing, so the sunshine and good weather must have been the Leafs minds as they arrived in San Jose because they got out-shot 38-27 and lost to the Sharks 5-2.
There was one bright spot in that game though.
Spectacular Goal by #Marner - assist #Matthews #Leafs vs #Sharks pic.twitter.com/Miz0Ibi9Q4
— Maple Mecca (@MapleMecca) March 4, 2020
After a disappointing loss in San Jose, the Leafs hoped to get a win going against the Los Angeles Kings.
Facing a team that is second-worst in Goals For in the NHL, it felt like an easy win. Despite limiting the Kings to zero goals in the regulation, the Leafs couldn’t score either and lost 1-0 in a shootout.
After back-to-back tough losses, there was no way the team was going to lose to Anaheim, right?
Wrong.
The team could only score one goal as they lost 2-1 to the Ducks. As one of the most offensive talented teams in the NHL, the Leafs only scored three goals in three games.
After what looked to be an important road-trip which would give them some playoff cushion, the Leafs decided to take their own March Break and only came home with one point.
#4. Injury-Plagued Season
I know this isn’t one specific moment, but injuries are a narrative that have followed the Toronto Maple Leafs all season.
When the season stopped, the Leafs had lost over 200 man games to injury.
To compare this to last season, at roughly the same point the season stopped, the Leafs had only lost 72 man games to injury.
Injuries happen to every NHL team during every season and although it shouldn’t be looked at as an excuse, it has to be talked about.
The injuries the Leafs saw were not some that could be replaced.
For example, the team saw significant injuries from Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, Andreas Johnsson, and Ilya Mikheyev, while Zach Hyman and Travis Dermott also missed the start of the regular season.
Rielly and Muzzin are the Leafs top-two defenseman, hands down.
Without out those two in the line-up, the team is significantly worse and you could look at those injuries as a reason to why Freddie Andersen’s numbers have been worse and to why the team’s defense as a whole has suffered.
Johnsson and Mikheyev, although not crucial offensive pieces, are two depth players that make the Leafs top-six much better and balance out the entire line-up. Both can fit in as top-six wingers when paired with Auston Matthews or John Tavares, but balance out a third line that makes the Leafs top-nine one of the best in the NHL.
Johnsson has the ability to be a 20-goal scorer each year, and Mikheyev was on-pace for that same mark before his injury. Not many teams have nine forwards that have the ability to score 20 or more goals each year, but the Leafs did when Johnsson and Mikheyev were in the line-up.
Although Hyman and Dermott both made their way back to the line-up near the end of October and early November, they still had to start the season without a training camp. It’s unsure how much they would have affected the team’s record but October was not a good month for the Leafs so those two in the line-up wouldn’t have hurt the team at at all.
#3. The Week of January 12th
After rattling off a 10-game point streak in December and early January, the Leafs seemed unstoppable.
No matter what happened each game, it always felt like the Leafs could come back.
But that all changed the week of January 12th.
After back-to-back losses to Edmonton and Winnipeg, the team had three full days off before facing the Panthers in Florida.
Instead of staying in Toronto in the dead of the winter, the team decided to fly in early and enjoy some R&R in the sunshine state.
The team took a lot of criticism for flying in early, but Kyle Dubas and Sheldon Keefe assured the public that the group would be ready to play that Sunday night against the Panthers.
Unfortunately, the Leafs looked like a team full of 20-something-year-olds after a three-day bender in Florida when they dropped the puck, instead of a professional hockey team.
Before you knew it, the Leafs were down 6-0 to a team they were battling in the Atlantic Division and lost the game 8-4.
If you asked me, I couldn’t care less that they lost one regular season game after blowing off some steam in Florida, but for a lot of Leafs Nation, they felt betrayed.
The Leafs would rally back and win their next game at home against the New Jersey Devils, but after a loss to Calgary, the Leafs had one more game at home before the All-Star Break.
Hockey Night in Canada against an Original Six opponent is supposed to get a team focused and bring out their best.
Instead, the team once again fell flat.
With swim-up bars and ocean-fronts on their mind, the Leafs lost 6-2 at home in embarrassing fashion. After already loosing this way to Florida earlier this week, the team seemed lost and unfocused.
It was once again another disappointing moment that reflected their immaturity.
#2. Mike Babcock Fired
Some may call it a bright spot in the season because it embarked change, but in hindsight this wasn’t a memorable moment at all.
After signing an eight-year contract in 2015, the first few years of Mike Babcock were great.
With help from the Front Office, he was a key piece towards the rebuild and rebirth of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Even though the team finished dead last in his first year on the job, that was on purpose. The team wanted to bottom-out and get a high-draft pick, which they did when they selected Auston Matthews first overall.
The Leafs weren’t expected to make the playoffs in Babcock’s second year as coach, but they squeaked into a Wild Card position and gave the Washington Capitals a run for their money, despite losing in six games.
With high expectations, the Leafs made the playoffs two years in a row but unfortunately lost to the Boston Bruins in back-to-back Game 7’s, and Babcock had a lot to do with those losses.
His stubbornness and inability to play his best players in the biggest moments were a huge criticism towards him. For a team that was filled with so much skill, he was never able to optimize that skill and seemed like he didn’t let the Leafs play the way they were designed to.
Although the Leafs seem better off with Sheldon Keefe as their Head Coach moving forward, firing a coach is never a memorable moment in a season.
#1. February 22nd, 2020
It was a typical February Saturday night in Toronto. Curl up with friends and family, grab a beer and watch the Toronto Maple Leafs for Hockey Night in Canada.
However, we had no idea what we were in for that night.
Battling the Carolina Hurricanes for playoff position, this game was very important. The Leafs had already had a tough month, but coming off a big 4-0 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins two nights prior, it felt that momentum may have been on Toronto’s side.
After leading the game 1-0 after the First Period, the team came out flat and were down 4-1 before you could blink in the Second Period.
As the Hurricanes were destroying the Leafs, Hurricanes’ starting goaltender Petr Mrazek left the game with an injury, so former Leaf James Reimer stepped in to replace him.
Just over six minutes after replacing Mrazek, Reimer also suffered an injury and was out of the game.
So now what?
Both Hurricanes’ goaltenders were done for the evening, so who would replace him?
A name that nobody had ever heard of when the night started was about to become the biggest new-story of the NHL season.
A 42-year-old emergency back-up goaltender named David Ayres who works with the Toronto Maple Leafs joined the game and was now in net for the Hurricanes.
Things did not look good for the Hurricanes when Ayres joined the game, as he allowed two quick goals to make the game 4-3, but things settled down when the Third Period started.
The Hurricanes played like the 1970s Montreal Canadiens in the Third Period and did everything to stop Toronto from scoring.
Ayres stopped every shot he faced in the Third Period and Toronto lost the game 6-3. It was such an embarrassing display of hockey by the Maple Leafs and another dark spot in their not-so-memorable season thus far.
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If you’re a huge hockey fan and have a love for Disney-like moments, this was one of the most memorable nights in NHL history, but it’s a loss the Toronto Maple Leafs sure would like to forget.