21 Questions for the Toronto Maple Leafs on the verge of the 2023-24 season

The Toronto Maple Leafs can have an exciting team this year - one where Joseph Woll starts, Matthews Knies becomes a star, Easton Cowan competes for the Calder, Topi Niemela steals a couple people's jobs, Max Domi puts up sick numbers as Auston Matthews new wing man, and Mitch Marner has a career year.

But the Toronto Maple Leafs management can also blow it by forcing Woll to share the crease, playing Domi at 3C, keeping Niemala in the AHL and sending Cowan back to junior, and going into the season with Marner unsigned and letting new Coach Craig Berube pair him with Matthews, again.

If the Leafs safe-risk-free tendancies carry the day, the team will struggle to make the playoffs. Ironically, not babying their young players and employing some of the creative out-side-the-box thinking that Sheldon Keefe brought to his final days as Leafs coach is what can save them.

There is hope, but questions persist:

Questions, such as:

Will the Leafs continue to play Domi with Matthews?

Will Joseph Woll stay healthy?

Will Joseph Woll be any good?

Can GM Brad Treliving get his mojo back, or is he permanently scarred from accidently building the Florida Panthers into a Cup Champion? The Leafs GM hasn't made a significant trade in 17 months on the job, which must be some kind of record.

Will Chris Tanev avoid an age-related decline? Will Tavares?

Why wasn't the team who watched the near-instant career-ending decline of TJ Brodie more concerned about adding older defenseman?

Isn't it at least a bit weird that a team that got bit hard on the Muzzin/Brodie declines from stardom wouldn't learn their lesson?

Has anyone from this organization been forced to defend the absolutely ridiculous OEL signing outloud for the public?

Why does this team continue to have the most expensive 4th line in the NHL?

Will they ever clear Kampf, Jarnkrok, Timmins and Reaves and make better use of their combined $7 million cap-hit?

What about the fact that in game six of last year's playoffs, the Toronto Maple Leafs healthy-scratched $11 milllion dollars (Samsonov, Brodie, Timmins, Reaves) despite their fans having to hear daily complaints about how the team spent money on its stars?

Will Tavares have a luckier season? Will the team ever replace Bertuzzi? Who is going to play 3C? Will Rielliy thrive with Tanev? Is Liljegren a real top-four option? Can Knies be a star? Will the team finally develop a star player from outside the top ten?

Are they really so stupid as to send Easton Cowan back to Junior?

And finally, the big question: Are they going to make the biggest mistake in the entire history of this often laughable franchise and let Mitch Marner enter the season without a contract?