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Toronto Maple Leafs Still Contenders Despite Brad’s Bungling

By James Tanner

TORONTO, ON - MARCH 27: William Nylander #88 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his game tying goal against the Edmonton Oilers with teammates John Tavares #91 and Justin Holl #3 during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on March 27, 2021 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Oilers 4-3 in overtime. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - MARCH 27: William Nylander #88 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his game tying goal against the Edmonton Oilers with teammates John Tavares #91 and Justin Holl #3 during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on March 27, 2021 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Oilers 4-3 in overtime. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images) /
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The Toronto Maple Leafs have had a truly awful summer.

Things kicked off poorly when Kyle Dubas lost his power struggle and went to Pittsburgh, and they only got worse from there for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Instead of a proactive search (or doing the smart thing and promoting Brandon Pridham) Shannahan went with Brad Treliving, a generic hockey-guy whose resume more or less stinks.

Treliving came in and before taking care of any business – like signing his two pending free-agent superstars, or clearly salary – spent $18 million dollars on uneeded free-agents.

While the Tyler Bertuzzi deal is great for the team, the rest of the money he spent was idiotic, and it’s just down-right embarrassing that he gave Ryan Reaves a three-year contract. 

However, the Leafs are still contenders.

Toronto Maple Leafs Still Contenders Despite Brad’s Bungling

The reason the Leafs can have a horrible summer and still be a top team is easy: the NHL Is a star-driven league in which nothing else really matters but how your superstars perform.

Depth doesn’t really factor into it, because the best non-star player isn’t even worth a single win over 82 games, meaning the difference between any random AHL player and decent, but not star player, is marginal.

Margins matter, especially in a pro-sports league, but the salary cap makes it so that the optimal way to construct a team is to concentrate spending on a few stars and go cheap everywhere else.

This is why the Leafs were a .650 team for four years and were a top Cup Contender the entire time despite getting screwed over with the timing of the Core Four contracts and the Covid Pandemic.

Anyways, Treliving clearly doesn’t get this, but he’s going to benefit from it anyways, because even though he’s done an objectively bad job so far, he’s still going to have a top team – thanks to Kyle Dubas. 

Despite spending poorly, and despite a blue-line that will be worse than most non-playoff teams, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be competing with New Jersey and Pittsburgh for the Eastern Conference title next season.

This is because they will still have Auston Mattews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares.  The rest of the team doesn’t even really matter.   If the goalies hold up, they’ll be a top team again.

Next. Leafs Can Still Save the Summer With These Guys. dark

Sure, there is always a chance they are this year’s Calgary or last year’s Vegas, but that can happen to anyone and roster construction isn’t even really a factor when it does.  Should the Leafs avoid bizarrely unlikely outcomes, they will finish as a top three team in the conference and once again try to win the Stanley Cup from the position of favorites.

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