Are the Toronto Maple Leafs Among the Top 5 Stanley Cup Contenders?

The Toronto Maple Leafs have no excuse for not being one of the NHL's top Cup Contenders.

For the Last two months, depending on the day, the Toronto Maple Leafs are either the best or second best team in the NHL (along with Carolina).

Therefore, all the excuses Treliving made about not adding at the deadline fail to hold water.

This team has Auston Matthews, MItch Marner and William Nylander at the peak of their primes.

They are getting something close to the last of the best years of Domi, McCabe, Bertuzzi, Rielly and Tavares who are all 29 or older.

And they are going to enter the playoffs with a rookie goalie who has falied to stay healthy so much that he's combined for about one full season during the last four, another goalie who was unclaimed on waivers earlier this season, and one who hasn't finished an NHL season with a save percentage above .899 for five years.

Are the Toronto Maple Leafs Among the Top 5 Stanley Cup Contenders?

I don't think Brad Treliving has had a good start to his Leafs career at all. He picked wrong on his choice with Nylander, didn't get Matthews to sign the full eight years, had the worst summer of any team in the NHL and then was the unanimous loser at the NHL Trade Deadline.

It is entirely possible that he is the NHL's worst GM. The successor to Peter Chiarelli and John Ferguson JR.

And yet, the Leafs have been the best team in the NHL for almost 2 months. They are leading the NHL in scoring during this time, and that might be an unsustainable way to win. The playoffs typically have lower scoring games, and the Leafs can't really trust any of their goalies, and their blue-line is among the worst of all contenders.

The Top contenders, the teams with the best rosters, in my opinion are: Carolina, Edmonton, Dallas, Florida and Colorado. After that you have Vegas, and then a bunch of teams like Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and Boston who are flawed but still could win.

There is no reason for the Leafs to be in that second tier when it was such a buyer's market and TJ Brodie and Ilya Samsonov are pending UFAs who combine to make $8 million dollars.

The Toronto Maple Leafs could very well win the Stanley Cup this year. They have been unlucky a lot over the past five season so they could easily experience some good fortune this spring, and Auston Matthews + League Average Goaltending could take them all the way.

But the team who has played so well lately, and the fans who have been so unrewarded for their continued loyalty deserved better at the deadline.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are not among the 5 biggest Cup Threats and that's on management.