The Toronto Maple Leafs have changed coaches, and with a new coach comes the hope that this team can finally get over it's playoff problems and win the Stanley Cup.
Just one little problem with that.
The Toronto Maple Leafs still have one of the worst goalie and blue-line situations in the NHL.
In fact, the entire off-season discourse has been incredibly off-base and frustarting. The coach wasn't a problem. Mitch Marner isn't a problem. All the other things everyone is blaming the loss to Boston on are pretty much irrelevent.
The Leafs didn't score in the playoffs and that was the main story, but their stars were all hurt or sick or recovering from injuries that they shouldn't have been playing through. Their two best secondary scoreres sat out game seven.
The power-play cost them the seriers, but it's never going to be that bad again. The real problem on the Leafs was their crap blue-line and terrible starting goalie. This has mostly been ignored. The way in which the Leafs lost (can't score, no PP) has distorted the off-season discourse, but what the team truly needs hasn't changed at all.
The idea of a new coach is laughable if the blue-line and goalie remain league-average or worse.
How the Toronto Maple Leafs Can Easily Make Craig Berube Look Like a Genius
Step One: Acquire a legitimate hall of fame level defenseman.
Step Two: Acquire a legitamate hall of fame level goalie.
Every single coach who has these things: complete genius.
Coaches who do not have these things get fired eventually. The Leafs are right about how to spend the salary cap - you are supposed to get as many stars as you can and spend the left-overs on the cheapest players you can find.
This is mathematically indisputable.
The Leafs problem has always been that they haven't been able to augment their core players with good enough defenseman or goalies.
And to be fair this isn't because of the salary cap. Morgan Rieilly is paid like an elite number-one defenseman, he just isn't quite that good. There is more than enough wasted money on this year's roster to have afforded a top goalie too.
The Leafs healthy-scratched $11 million when they dressed their best lineup in the playoffs this year. (Timmins, Reaves, Brodie, Samsonov) so they clearly could have afforded a top goalie, it's just hard to find one.
But they don't have a choice. Making Craig Berube a genius is easy, in theory. The Tornto Maple Leafs have tried everything to win with Auston Matthews, just not the most obvious thing: they've never paired him with an elite goalie or an elite defenseman.
Time to change that.
Is Berube the right choice? Could they have waited and hired someone better? The irony is that the people invovled have no control over whether or not the Leafs made the right decision. Get an elite goalie and an elite defenseman and you automatically get an elite coach - doesn't even matter what his name is.