Putting the Toronto Maple Leafs and Their Superstars into Context

Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner have played in seven season for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The best the duo have achieved was this year when their Toronto Maple Leafs suffered a second round loss to the Florida Panthers.

This lack of team success is often a point of criticism, and people use it as a reason for perhaps justifying a trade of Mitch Marner, or to complain about Matthews becoming the league’s top paid player (about to happen shortly).

But these criticisms  are about as intellectually valid as the idea of trading Marner in a league where no one has ever traded a player as good as he is and won the trade.

Here is some context.

Putting the Toronto Maple Leafs Last Seven Years into Context

Nathan MacKinnon made his NHL debut in 2013-14.  His team made the playoffs that year then lost in the first round. After that they missed the playoffs for three straight years (Note that Auston and Mitch have never missed the playoffs).

For eight seasons, Nathan MacKinnon failed to get beyond the second round.  He won the Stanley Cup in his ninth year.

Steven Stamkos did make the 3rd round in his third year, but he only made the playoffs once in his first five.  He didn’t win the Cup until his 13th season.

Ryan O’Reilly – ironically acquired by the Leafs to help them win in the Playoffs – didn’t make it out of round one for the first ten seasons of his career.

Patrice Bergeron missed the playoffs in three of his first four seasons.  He did win the Cup in year seven, but prior to that had never been beyond the second round.

Connor McDavid didn’t qualify for the playoffs in three of his first four seasons, and then made the conference finals in his seventh year, and lose in round two in year eight.  If the Leafs make round three next season, Matthews and McDavid will have pretty much identical playoff records through their first eight years.

Except that a Matthews/Marner team has never missed the playoffs.

Alex Ovechkin missed the playoffs in both is first two seasons.  It was 12 seasons without making it out of round two.  He won the Stanley Cup in his 13th season. (team info from nhl.com).

In fact, the only stars on the Matthews/Marner level who won the Cup early were either guys like Point/Pasternak/Makar who joined championship teams as rookies and put them over the top, or  Crosby/Malkin and Kane/Toews who came into the league and won on their entry-level deals on stacked teams while the competition struggled to learn how to operate in a cap system.

I hope this makes you feel a lot better about the Toronto Maple Leafs.