Perfect Timing: Youth + Core Will Finally Bring Success for Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs finally have the right mix of youth and stars to win the Stanley Cup.

Ironically, after replacing their young, hungry, innovative GM with one of the least exciting, dynamic or aggressive general managers in all of sports, and having two back-to-back summers of safe, boring moves, the Toronto Maple Leafs are finally primed for success.

Turns out all they had to do was stick with Dubas' Core and wait for the players he drafted to age into the ability to make an impact.

It's been a year and more since he was fired, but the 2025 Toronto Maple Leafs look primed to prove Kyle's vision was right.

Perfect Timing: Youth + Core Will Finally Bring Success for Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are stil lead by Morgan Rielly and the Core Four of John Tavares, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and new captain Auston Matthews.

In addition to this core, the Leafs current GM has smartly added Max Domi and Chris Tanev to the mix, but the players that will really make a difference were all already here.

For years the Leafs were unable to get over the top, partially because they could develop their own late-drafted star player. While other post-salary cap teams that had long runs of Cup Competitiveness with the likes of Braydon Point, Kris Letang, Joe Pavelski, Alex Edler, Duncan Keith and Jonathan Quick the Leafs struggled to develop low picks into stars.

Until now.

Now the Leafs can pair their Core Five (you gotta include Rielly) with the likes of Matthew Knies, Bobby McMann, Nick Robertson, Easton Cowan, Fraser Minten, Topi Niemela, Timothy Liljegren and Joseph Woll.

That is up to eight impact players who can play for the Leafs next season on very cheap contracts. All eight of them are Kyle Dubas picks (with the exception of technically Cowan, although he should be seen as such) and all eight of them have Star Potential, especially Joseph Woll, who, if he stays healthy, has the chance to completely alter how this team is seen and what it can do.

Now I don't expect Timothy Liljegren to turn into a top-pairing player, but it's not impossible that he does, and he's the oldest and lowest potential out of all of them (save maybe Minten who doesn't seem to have the scoring ability to be a top-six NHL player). These guys could just end up being solid players in a good lineup, but importantly they all provide a lot of upside at basically no risk or salary committment.

And it's that upside that is so tantalizing and which gives the 2025 Toronto Maple Leafs an aura of excitement. This isn't just the same-old core (if you can be that blaise about having five potential hall of famers on one team) it's a core of superstars, either just starting or at the tail-end of their primes, paired with eight young high-upside players.

The potential here is off-the-charts, and if it works out, we likely will see the best season of the Auston Matthews Era yet.