The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967, but expect that to change in the next few years.
As a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, we want things to happen fast. We’ve waited so long for the team to be good and now that they are, we want them to win a Stanley Cup tomorrow.
Although, every fan wants their team to win a championship every single year, we have to remind ourselves just how young this Leafs team is right now.
As shown in the tweet below, the Leafs were the third youngest team entering the 24-team restart with an average age of 26.1 years old. This is a team who’s best players are still only 22 and 23. And don’t forget that both Boston and Tampa have been building their current rosters for over a decade. It takes time to win.
If you take the 37-year-old Jason Spezza off this roster, that age declines even more drastically.
Toronto Maple Leafs and the Window to Win
As shown in the tweet below, the Leafs were the third youngest team entering the 24-team restart with an average age of 26.1 years old. If you take the 37-year-old Jason Spezza off this roster, that age declines even more drastically.
Here's the average age of the 24 NHL teams involved in the restart: pic.twitter.com/H2ywugfSxS
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) July 28, 2020
Just look at the Leafs four superstars. They’re some of the youngest players on the roster:
- Auston Matthews: 23 years old
- Mitch Marner: 23 years old
- William Nylander: 24 years old
- Morgan Rielly: 26 years old
John Tavares, who’s the captain and leader of the team, is a dinosaur compared to the Leafs young talent at 30-years-old. His skating may not be the greatest in the league, but Tavares will still be an elite player for most of his remaining contract.
Remember those young Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks team’s that were in what felt like every Stanley Cup Final from 2008-2016? They were actually older than this current Leafs roster. The 2008-09 winning Pittsburgh team was 26.6 years old and the 2009-10 Chicago Blackhawks team was also 26.6 years old.
However, we have to stop looking at those teams as comparable’s for winning. Since the 1998-99 season, the average age of a Stanley Cup winning roster is 28.5 years old. That’s 2.5 years younger than the Leafs roster was heading into the qualifying series. Although the Leafs core players will be one year older next year, the team could actually be getting younger.
Assuming that Nick Robertson (19 years old), Mikko Lehtonen (26 years old) and Alexander Barabanov (26 years old) all make the Leafs roster next season, they could all be potentially younger than the players they’re replacing.
It’s very hard to win a Stanley Cup and just because the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t win this year, doesn’t mean you need to break up the team or change the narrative. With every year this team stays together, they get closer to winning a championship. There’s a reason why the average age to win is 28.5 years old.
Every team needs to have a mature group who have been through the struggles before they win. Adversity is a real when it comes to winning a championship and by going through those struggles as a team, it’ll help them pull-through in critical situations down the road.
We have to remember that Marner, Matthews and Nylander are all 24-years-old or younger. If they’re nearing 30-years-old and they haven’t won yet, let’s criticize them then. But for now, trust the process. The longer you wait, the sweeter it is.