The Toronto Maple Leafs Main Problem and Biggest Failure

The Toronto Maple Leafs biggest problem is not their salary cap.

The Toronto Maple Leafs biggest failure is not losing in five straight playoff series.

Any problems that are associated with those two things listed above are because of one thing, and one thing only:  The team’s inability to develop a star player outside their top draft picks.

Tomas Kaberle was the last one, in 1996.

Toronto Maple Leafs Biggest Problem

Drafted in the eighth round of the 1996 entry draft, Kaberle is the last player the Leafs ever drafted outside the top ten, that turned into a star player (at least for them).

Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point , Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Duncan Keith, Patrice Bergeron, Mark Stone, Kris Letang, Brendan Gallagher, Jonathan Quick, Adam Fox, Joe Pavelski, Johnny Gaudreau…..you can go on all day.   A large portion of NHL stars are low picks.

Look at the NHL’s most successful teams of the last decade: Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Vancouver, Tampa, Boston and San Jose all have key players who were not top ten picks.

You can’t currently say that about the Toronto Maple Leafs, except for maybe Jack Campbell but he’s only played like half a season of games in total, and besides, he was acquired in a trade.

In the 2016 and 2017 drafts, helmed by Mark Hunter, the Leafs drafted 16 players on top of Matthews and Liljegren, and the best they did was Adam Brooks.  In the three Hunter drafts, the Leafs took 24 players outside the first round and their best picks were Travis Dermott and Adam Brooks.  With the pandemic making the salary cap flat, do you have any idea how much a hit on even one player during this time would have helped right now?

But it’s not just three years the Leafs have failed to find their Kris Letang It’s 25.

If the Leafs can turn one of Robertson,  Abramov, SDA, Niemela, Amirov or Hallander into a legitimate star player they are going to be a whole lot better than they are today.  Given their salary cap situation, things would be going a lot more smoothly if they’d been able to develop even one half-decent prospect along with their star players.

The last three drafts which have been helmed by Kyle Dubas have the kind of people who are very into prospects pretty fired up. Though the Leafs don’t have any big name prospects, they have an entire stable of decent to mid range guys with high-ceilings, and as such have been ranked as high as fourth best in the NHL. (see above tweet).

It’s actually impressive how good of a team the Leafs have iced the last two years when you consider their team is entirely built through the top of the draft, free agency and  trades.  LA (Quick), Vancouver (Edler), Pittsburgh (Letang), Chicago (Keith), Detroit (Zetterberg, Datsyuk), San Jose (Pavelski), Tampa (Kucherov, Point) and Boston (Bergeron, Marchand) dominated the NHL for the better part of 15 years by adding random low-picked superstars to their top draft picks.

The Leafs, under Dubas, have put themselves in a great position to find one of these players (again, see tweet) but until they do, we should probably cut him some slack.  To become a top regular season team and annual cup contender without one of these players is impressive. Let alone doing it during a flat cap situation.

Not for nothing, but not a single person would be complaining about the Studs and Duds cap strategy if the Leafs had hit on a single low pick, or the cap had gone up like it was supposed to (it was in fact, supposed to sky rocket due to expansion, TV and gambling).

The bottom line is this: The Leafs are going to be a great team for years, and when they finally get by the desert left by Mark Hunter’s terrible drafts, they will be in a much better position than they are now. (And again, they are currently one of the best teams).

Still, 26 drafts and counting since they found a star in the late rounds. Absolutely astounding.