The Toronto Maple Leafs will be coming back with the same management and core that has seen them fail in both the last two seasons (stop saying five seasons, by the way, the first three were not failures since the team barely had any business even making the playoffs at the start of their rebuild).
If you actually think about it, this makes sense given that hockey is a world of clichés and “5 Year Rebuild” is about the biggest of them all. The Toronto Maple Leafs just finished their fifth year, so technically, the expectations should only start now.
Regardless, there is one major change the Leafs should make:
Go back to being the high-end run-and-gun offensive team they started out as.
Toronto Maple Leafs Lost Their Identity
I can imagine the following scenario playing out last year after the loss to Columbus:
The Leafs young GM is told that he’s got two more seasons to bring his vision to fruition, but the team must make concessions to the critics (including those on the MLSE Board) and bring in some grinders and experience on the edges. If this doesn’t work, he can do what he wants in year two, but if there is no success after that….
Now, I have no evidence of this being true, but it does seem plausible. I don’t think adding Foligno, Bogosian, Thornton and Simmonds were things that we would have seen if the Leafs got by Columbus. These are not moves that lined up with Dubas previous vision, and I think I was proven right when I said the three veteran free agents were a mistake, and when I said they should pursue Taylor Hall and not Nick Foligno.
And If the Leafs don’t make it beyond round one next year, I think we’ll see a new President, GM and Coach, that much is obvious.
We’ll know if I’m right or not based on what the Leafs do this summer, but in my opinion they need to get back to the speed and skill that made them so hard to play against in the past.
Foligno, Thornton, Simmonds and Bogosian are probably gone. They should not be replaced by any grinders or veterans. The Leafs, since their doubling down on their core, should double down on everything – including their original offense based team building plan.
The good news is that although Mark Hunters terrible drafts left the Leafs bereft of cheap entry-level talent, that is about to change. The Leafs, who have one of the top prospect systems in the NHL, will finally have some ready-for-action young players who can help out on the cheap.
Rasmus Sandin and Nick Robertson will be in the lineup, while players like Filip Hallander and Joey Anderson may get a chance to break into the league. Over the next couple of seasons, the Leafs have a lot of prospects who will either make the NHL or become excellent trade bait.
I think the important thing for this team is to forget about the critics completely. Realize that as long as you try to do things your own way, people are going to hate your for it. Let the anonymous dinosaurs tell their media connections how dumb the Leafs cap situation is, or how inadequate their roster is. Ultimately, no one is going to change anyone’s mind without the Stanley Cup. That’s just how it is.
So instead of trying to placate people by balancing the old and the new, the Toronto Maple Leafs should say good riddance to their grinders and their veterans, and concentrate on talent, scoring and puck movement.
It is time to re-embrace their identity as a skilled, skating, offense-first team.