The 2021 Season Is When the Toronto Maple Leafs Break Through

The Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Auston Matthews in the summer of 2016.

Matthews was added to a stable of recent Toronto Maple Leafs draft picks that included the fifth overall Morgan Rielly (the best player of his draft class), the eight overall William Nylander and the fourth overall Mitch Marner.

The Leafs famously added in the best UFA player of all-time, John Tavares, and have, for the last two seasons, been threatening to become a dominant  team. 

If building a winner was easy, the Leafs might already have a cup. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to just assemble a good roster, you’ve also got to win the games. So far, the Leafs haven’t done so, but things are lining up for 2021 to be the year they break through.

Toronto Maple Leafs Break Through Season

The Leafs took the Bruins to game seven, twice.  Both times the Leafs could easily have dispatched a legacy team, and only bad luck prevented it.  Then, this summer, they were done in by the Blue Jackets after their two goalies each went on separate 50 save streaks during a five game series and finished with the highest 5v5 save percentage in NHL history for a playoff series.

Ridiculous results won’t always happen, and luck will even out in the end.  The Leafs will take to the ice this year knowing they just lost on one of the flukiest occurrences in NHL history, and that they are due for some good results.

They will be playing in an incredibly easy division where they are the only thing even close to resembling a Cup contender, and will actually have to play the other 5 best teams in the league zero times in the regular season.

They will have the deepest team in the NHL, and the team with the most elite players.  They are coming off a season where the regular season results where far lower than their team stats suggested they should be, and where they were competing for the President’s Trophy in games that Michael Hutchinson didn’t play.

Finally, they have added an elite, top pairing defender and a hall of fame centre to provide leadership.  They even added some toughness.  But most of all, the Big Three – Matthews, Marner, and Nylander – are all that much closer to their primes, and may even be hitting their peaks this year.

One of the NHL’s best, and youngest teams is getting better internally, on top of coming off (by far) the most productive off-season of any team in the NHL.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are primed for a breakout year, and in 2021 the Stanley Cup will finally be theres.