Toronto Maple Leafs: How the NHL’s Best Young Team Supposedly Failed

The Culmination of Factors Part 2

Dubas is in charge, the Toronto Maple Leafs kicked a couple of legends to the curb to make it happen, he signs everyone to massive deals and focuses on things that old-time hockey fans and the guys who run the game don’t like or agree with.

Then the team loses to the Blue Jackets.

Then they lose to Montreal.

Matthews and Marner – two of the NHL’s five best players – go cold two playoffs in a row.

Their ex-GM wins his second straight GM of the Year Award (and no matter how dubious this award actually is, to the casual fan this looks terrible).

Then their most popular player, (inexplicably, it’s Zach Hyman) walks in free-agency.

Now add in 50 years of losing.

Then, no big names added in free-agency.

The net effect of all this is that the Leafs have three of the best players in the NHL signed through their primes and one of the best teams in hockey, and people act like they are garbage and always will be.  Auston Matthews is 23 and does that make Leafs fans excited?

I mean it should. But people should also be able to understand that if your best players are the reason you lost, and if they are 23 and their performance included great underlying numbers, then this bodes extremely well for the future.

The fact is that the Leafs are viewed poorly right now through a combination of bad luck, untimely injuries, untimely cold streaks, and mostly, a history of failure that has nothing to do with anyone currently running or on the team.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the NHL’s four best teams (along with Tampa, Colorado and Vegas) and of those teams, they are the only one to not get significantly worse this off-season.

The Leafs are about to embark on the primes of three of the best players in franchise history. They have one of the NHL’s best roster, one of the NHL’s best farm systems and more stars than any other team.

They are on the verge of a Stanley Cup….just don’t tell anyone.