The Time-Traveling Toronto Maple Leafs Fan Recaps Last Season
2023-24 Player Highlights
Auston Matthews rebounded from last season (when he scored ONLY 40 times) with a league-leading 57 goals.
Mitch Marner lead the Toronto Maple Leafs in points with an eye-popping 122, finishing second only to Connor McDavid in league scoring.
Newly acquired Tyler Bertuzzi made the most of his time on the top line and reached 70 points for the first time in his career.
William Nylander’s star continued to rise, as he scored over 40 goals again and fell just short of 100 points. Unfortunately, we started to see more decline from captain John Tavares, who struggled with injuries and barely hit the 60 point mark.
Matthew Knies continued to prove he’s the real deal, racking up 25 goals and 37 assists, and finishing second to Connor Bedard in the Calder Trophy race. He showed no ill effects from the concussion he sustained when mugged by Florida’s Sam Bennett in the 2023 playoffs.
Speaking of Sam Bennett…….newly acquired Toronto policeman Ryan Reaves avenged Knies’ injury and earned all $4.05M of his ludicrous 3 year contract (and 5 minutes in the penalty box) by enthusiastically pounding on Bennett’s noggin in the Leafs first road game of the year.
Max Domi antagonized his opponents as well as coach Sheldon Keefe, as he found the penalty box too often but rarely found the scoresheet. Ryan Reaves ran rampant on the ice (between organizing team leisure activities), engaging in no fewer than an even dozen fights on the season.
On the blueline, the Toronto Maple Leafs defined the word “average”, as Morgan Rielly and John Klingberg were good but not great. TJ Brodie and Mark Giordano saw less and less ice time as age took its toll, but Jake McCabe and Timothy Liljegren took up the slack.
In net, Ilya Samsonov began the year as the starter, but due to injuries soon lost top billing to Joseph Woll. Woll then went on a tear, playing almost 50 games, and finished second to Igor Shesterkin in Vezina voting.
Who Signed Contracts?
Although never confirmed, it was widely speculated that Auston Matthews and William Nylander sat down with Mitch Marner during September of 2023 and hashed out what needed to be done to maximize the Toronto Maple Leafs chances of winning the Stanley Cup.
The result was the pre-season signings of both Matthews and Nylander to contact extensions. Matthews’ new deal came in at 7 years with an average annual salary cap hit of $12.6M (matching Nathan MacKinnon’s league-high AAV). Nylander also re-upped for 7 years, with an AAV of $9.7M.
Both players could likely have played out the last year of their existing deal, hit the open market, and earned more as unrestricted free agents. However, the fact was that the young stars were already established and comfortable in Toronto, and the team was entering the year as a strong Cup contender. The core of the Toronto Maple Leafs demonstrated that they do, in fact, care more about winning than money.
Going forward, it is likely that Marner will also sign a reasonable extension when his turn comes on July 1, 2024 (I don’t know this for sure because it was only late June of 2024 when my friend jumped in his time machine).
At the end of the season, a new (much smaller) deal was in the works for John Tavares. Mark Giordano announced his retirement. Max Domi signed with the New York Rangers, his eighth team in eight years. TJ Brodie and John Klingberg signed elsewhere (I can’t remember what my friend said). Tyler Bertuzzi went back to Detroit, Ilya Samsonov went to the KHL, and Nick Robertson was traded to Dallas for a third round draft pick.
The Team – Cup Winners at Last?
OK, ok, I hear you, enough with the details, how does the season end? Do the Toronto Maple Leafs finally parade the Stanley Cup down Yonge Street?
Well, let’s build up to that answer. First of all, the Leafs did win the President’s Trophy as the league’s top regular season team, garnering a team record 122 points (just like Mitch Marner – coincidence? – probably!). Forget about the President’s Trophy jinx, though, as that is pure superstition.
By winning the Atlantic Division, Toronto earned the right to play a wild-card team in the first round, which just happened to be……..the Tampa Bay Lightning. But these were not the Lightning of old, and the Toronto Maple Leafs dispatched Stamkos, Kucherov and friends in four straight games. It was a methodical dismantling of a Tampa team that was so strong just a few years ago.
Round 2 saw the Leafs engage the Buffalo Sabres, and it was a back and forth affair with Toronto coming out on top in six games. I’m told that my friend and I drove to Buffalo for Game 6, enjoyed the wings (extra hot, of course) pre-game at the Anchor Bar, and were amazed that even during the playoffs, Leaf fans outnumbered Sabres fans by a 2-1 margin at the KeyBank Centre.
In Round 3, things got kind of weird, as Brad Treliving’s Toronto Maple Leafs took on Kyle Dubas’ Pittsburgh Penguins. The novelty of the GM thing wore off quickly, and the teams settled down to show us why the best game you can name is the good old hockey game. Seven hard-fought games ended with the Leafs advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1967. Dubas cried when hugging Sheldon Keefe in the handshake line.
Next. Recent Leafs Teams More Successful Than Recognized. dark
Finally, the Toronto Maple Leafs took on the Seattle Kraken in an epic battle for the right to chug beer from Lord Stanley’s mug. In the end, the battle was less than epic, it lasted only five games, and the subsequent parade went past a fish market instead of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
You expected something different????