Toronto Maple Leafs: Tampa Bay Still a Stanley Cup Threat

The Toronto Maple Leafs remain in the toughest division in hockey.

Last season, the Atlantic had one of the highest concentrations of power that the NHL has ever seen in a single division. The Toronto Maple Leafs finished fourth overall, the Panthers first overall, while Tampa Bay Lightning were back-to-back champs who flirted with first place all season, and the Boston Bruins finished 1st in expected goals percentage, 10th overall.

Any of these four teams could have finished first overall last year or won the Stanley Cup with the roster they iced.

We’ve already established that the Panthers will take a step back, and that Ottawa will take a  smaller step forward than their fans think.

The Canadiens are doing exactly what they should be doing, and we continue our Atlantic preview today with the Tampa Bay Lightning. 

Toronto Maple Leafs Are the Best Team in the Atlantic

Tampa Bay has three straight appearances in the Stanley Cup Final and are one of the best teams of the Cap Era.

In fact, the only two teams who you could place above them – the Blackhawks and Penguins of the early cap days – had such built-in advantages with Crosby/Kane on entry-level deals when no  one else even knew how valuable that was, that Tampa should at least get credit as the best architect of the Cap Era.

This summer they lost Ondrej Palat and Ryan McDonagh among others.

But it hardly matters.

As long as they have Kucherov, Stamkos, Point, Sergachev, Hedman and Vasilevskiy, the rest of their players are irrelevant.

One day they likely will regret handing out long-term contracts to their lesser-lights, but they appeared in three-straight Stanley Cup Finals, so if they want to pay off some guys for that, that is their business.

As long as their core remains intact, they have one of the best teams in hockey.

Easily they could win the Atlantic and go to another Cup.

However, they aren’t as good as they were last year, and the Leafs are a younger and hungrier team.  The Leafs also have Matthews and Marner, which is an advantage over every team.

The Toronto Maple Leafs finished ahead of Tampa last year in the regular season and outplayed them in the playoffs.  It didn’t matter.  Tampa still won.

However, I think that could be the impetus, the catalyst, if you will – the one thing that teaches the Leafs the difference between potential and getting it done.  They beat Tampa and still didn’t advance.

They should know now what it takes.  Tampa, on the other hand, will not be dropping off significantly.  The Atlantic might be slightly easier for their now being less hungry, but you can’t really count on that.  They are still a dangerous team.