Was This The Most Boring Toronto Maple Leafs Season in Recent History?

Was this the most boring Toronto Maple Leafs season of the past decade?

When you look back at the 2022-23 Toronto Maple Leafs season, what do you remember? Is there one thing that jumps out that makes you go, this was a fun 82 games!

In my opinion, this season has been nothing short of “let’s wait until April”. The only thing that jumps out is Mitch Marner’s point streak, but besides that, we’ve known that the Leafs are going to make the playoffs and play Tampa Bay in the First Round for essentially the past three months.

The Boston Bruins ran away with the division, so there was no excitement around competing for the division or winning a President’s Trophy. Instead, we’ve just been riding out the past few months knowing that nothing matters until April.

For roughly the past decade, there has at least been some intrigue around the regular season, with those games meaning something.

For example, starting with the 2014-15 season, we saw Randy Carlyle get fired, then a Leafs team fall off a cliff led by Peter Horachek. The team didn’t win, but they definitely gave us something to watch all year.

2022-23 Season Gave Toronto Maple Leafs Fans Little Drama

Following that campaign, 2015-16 was the tank season. The Leafs had a million call-ups that year and did everything they could to win the No. 1 overall draft pick, which they did, and eventually drafted Auston Matthews with that pick. Every regular season game meant something, except we were rooting for losses instead of wins.

The 2016-17 season was a new beginning. Matthews, Marner and William Nylander all together for the first time. There was optimism in the air and on Game 81, the team secured a playoff spot, making this season as memorable as any other.

2017-18 was must-watch because the young team could do something special. 2018-19 brought us John Tavares and once again it was worth watching, as he scored 47 goals and it felt like this could be the year to redeem themselves against Boston.

As we moved to 2019-20, the regular season had drama. Mike Babcock got fired and reports came out about the team hating him, then as Sheldon Keefe took over, the team looked energized and Kyle Dubas’ plan was finally coming to fruition.

Covid shortened the regular season and then shortened the following year, but even the 2020-21 year was fun as the Leafs won the “All-Canadian Division.” Playing the same teams every night was a little tough to watch but during a pandemic, we couldn’t be more excited to watch as Matthews looked like he could really score 50 goals in 50 games.

As for 2021-22, despite knowing that we were going to wait until April again, Matthews once again gave us a reason to watch. He scored 60 goals, won the Hart and Rocket Richard Trophy and gave us the greatest Leafs season of all-time.

From 2014-2022, we were given a fun storyline or something entertaining, while during the 2022-23 season, it felt like we were just going through the motions. There was little drama, no enticing storylines and all we wanted was to wait until April 18th to figure out what this year was about.

Now that the playoffs are here, maybe that will change but let’s hope there’s not too much drama involving a Toronto Maple Leafs loss, but instead, it’s an exciting storyline following this team to the Stanley Cup Finals.