A recent survey by the Athletic ranked the Toronto Maple Leafs near the bottom of the NHL in the confidence fans have of management.
I personally cannot believe that the Toronto Maple Leafs didn't come dead last, as I would have ranked them, but then again, there is always Buffalo.
The point is, the Leafs have been managed awfully since they made the mistake of sticking with Brendan Shanahan over Kyle Dubas.
Brad Treliving has had two awful summers in a row, and his name-chasing risk-adverse style is horrendous to watch. The only good thing is that he was gifted such a great situation that even he hasn't been able to totally screw it up.
Are the Toronto Maple Leafs Any Better Than They Were? No.
The Leafs made changes to their entire roster this summer, but none of it improves the team. In fact, they may be a little worse than they were last year.
In net, the Leafs had a clear need for a high-end goalie, but settled for a value-pairing instead. This could work out, and it could be a disaster. No real way to know, but the guys they went with are inexperienced and injury prone and have no history of sustained success in the NHL.
Seems like a recipe for disaster, but what do I know?
On defense the Leafs made their biggest changes. They let TJ Brodie go and signed the older, more injury prone Chris Tanev. After seeing first-hand how quickly a post-30s star can fall of a cliff in the NHL, this was a curious move, to say the least.
It didn't work with Muzzin and it didn't work with Brodie, but the third time is for sure the charm.
The Leafs veteran defenseman Morgan Rielly and Jake McCabe are now another year older, while it appears that Simon Benoit is bizarrely still in the mix, maybe even in the top-four as the team likes to pair him with McCabe for reasons that are inexplicable.
The bottom pairing looks like it will be Oliver Ekman-Larrson and Timothy Liljegren, which will cost over $6 million for the exact same numbers Giordano and Liljegren put up for $2.5 million last year. OEL was a very stupid, very expensive low-upside signing that only makes sense if you are a bad GM with no clue what you're doing.
Overall the Leafs blue-line is way more expensive but it only improved by however much Tanev is better than Brodie was at the start of last season. So not much.
Up front, the team lost Tyler Bertuzzi and added no one. They probably also lost Nick Robertson. All of their dead-weight is still here, and their bottom six looks awful with no third-line centre in sight, unless the team switches Marner to centre, of which there is no indication they are even considering such a move.
The Leafs improved by adding Tanev, but none of their other moves is likely to significantly alter their fortunes for the positive. This move is undercut by the loss of Bertuzzi and it's honestly unclear if the Leafs are any better than they were.
Since Auston Matthews is unlikely to score 70 goals again, they are probably quite a bit worse in reality. That's par for the course though, because Brad Treliving only accidently builds winners.