Toronto Maple Leafs: Thoughts on Fan Apathy and the 2021-22 Season

The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Ottawa Sentarors 4-0 last night, and the recently signed Michael Bunting had a hattrick.

Bunting and the other half-dozen players the Toronto Maple Leafs signed and/or invited to training camp are making what would otherwise be a terribly boring pre-season into something fairly interesting.

The Leafs haven’t really had an interesting training camp since Matthews and Marner were rookies, and it’s a nice change of pace.

I know a lot of people who would otherwise be excited about a new Leafs season aren’t really feeling it this year so far, but I think this team is finally going to win people over.  It seems a lot of people are looking only at what happened in the playoffs and writing this team off before the season begins.  Others just don’t seem to care either way.

Toronto Maple Leafs Fan Apathy

If you listen to what virtually every player who plays for the Leafs, or who has played for the Leafs, they all talk about the respect that Kyle Dubas has for the players as actual people. They talk about how great of a place he has made Toronto to play.

Dubas has been great for the community and the city, and his players love him. Once the Leafs win, he’s going to be an absolutely legend in this city, but until then, the media and most of the fans of his own team don’t seem to find a lot of value in what he’s done so far.

All some fans see is this: Their favorite team hired a 30 year old GM over an NHL Legend, went deeply into analytics (might as well be voodoo for all they’re concerned), defied all the experts by emphasizing skill over grinding, eschewed both leadership and grinding, and lost,  then overcompensated and lost again anyways.

Add in the frustrations of the pandemic, the constant media attention, our society’s unhealthy obsession with instant results, and top it off with 55 years of failure to win the Stanley Cup, and anyone should be able to understand why Leafs fans a bit apathetic right now.

I don’t really agree with any of that, but I can definitely understand why people would. I personally think Dubas has done a fine job, and I think the Leafs are primed to win.  That they haven’t already isn’t really anyone’s fault, it’s just bad luck.  I honestly believe that circumstances aren’t allowing them to get the slack basically any other team would get in this situation (i.e one where their loss in the playoffs was caused by injuries).

The good news is that Tampa and Colorado didn’t win anything in the first five years after they drafted their franchise players either.  Tampa made it to the third round in Stamko’s third year, but they also failed to make the playoffs in four of his first five seasons.

Colorado made the playoffs in two out MacKinnon’s first five years, losing both times in the first round.  If these players can recover from disappointing starts to their careers, I see no reason why Matthews and Marner can’t.