Top 5 Burnings Questions for the Toronto Maple Leafs Heading into 2024-25
The Toronto Maple Leafs must answer these five burning questions if they are to compete for the Stanley Cup in 2024-25.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have one of the best rosters in the NHL.
The Toronto Maple Leafs had a bad summer - lost Wes Clark, blamed Sheldon Keefe for their problems, didn't make a trade, didn't acquire a top goalie, lost Bertuzzi, and all of their improvement were of the high-risk variety.
However, that doesn't mean they are a bad team - far from it.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are an absolute lock to make the playoffs, and they should be favorites to win the Atlantic Division.
This is because not only are all the best players on their roster returning (outside of Bertuzzi who was essentially traded for Tanev) but because they have a great combination of super-stars in their primes and up-and-coming players ready to break out.
Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander can all still get better, while the Leafs have a plethora of cheap players that could breakout and provide the kind of secondary talent they've never really had.
Matthews Knies, Nick Robertson, Bobby McMann, Topi Niemela, Joseph Woll, Timothy Liljegren, Easten Cowan and Fraser Minten give the Leafs at least eight players with the potential for a break-out season into star territory.
And, if Jani Hakanpaa's contract gets cancelled (horrible signing, hopefully it does) and the Leafs can move the dead-weight off their roster, they should have a ton of money at the trade deadline to add a star player.
So, generally, things are looking good. But, with all that said, there are still more questions than answers because this team has yet to live up to it's massive potential.
Here are the five biggest burning questions heading into the 2024-25 NHL Season.
1. Who Will Play Centre?
The Toronto Maple Leafs, their fans and various hockey analysts don't really know what to expect from new Leafs coach Craig Berube, so a lot of what you read is just people assuiming he'll more or less follow Sheldon Keefe's lead in icing a lineup.
Last time we saw the Leafs they had Auston Matthews as their top line centre, which is the only certain thing about their lineup this year.
They followed up with John Tavares who has spent the last six years playing 2C for the Leafs. Pontus Holmber was 3C and David Kampf was 4C.
It's amazing people complain about Mitch Marner's performance when the GM entered the playoffs with Pontus Holmberg playing third-line-centre. He's a nice player but he needs to be on the fourth line and as for David Kampf, he needs to be off the team as fast as humanly possible.
This year's centres are currently up in the air. Obviously Matthews is 1C but then what?
In my opinion, Max Domi is a bad opition to play centre for two reasons. 1: He's so bad defensively that his line needs extreme sheltering to win their minutes, which makes it very hard to find good matchups for the Leafs best players.
2: When he was paired with Matthews he scored 5v5 points at a rate higher than Connor McDavid has ever finished a full season with.
You can't turn your back on that.
I would pair Domi/Matthews with William Nylander because I think Nylander could run wild with defense focusing mostly on Matthews.
This would also free up Mitch Marner to anchor a second line. Since he's strong without the puck and a great passer, he's a natural fit at centre-ice even though he's been a winger since he made the NHL. Marner at 2C gives the Leafs so many more options.
Without Marner playing C, they don't have a third-line centre and their bottom-six looks weak. Put Marner at 2C and then you have John Tavares - yet to decline at age 33 - getting him some easier minutes where you could break him in with one of the rookies (or both of them).
This leaves Pontus Holmberg to centre the 4th line, and I think that's a great fit.
Matthews-Marner-Tavares-Holmberg gives the Leafs one of the best centre-ice situations in the league, maybe even the best.
2. Will the Leafs Finally Develop a Low-Picked Star?
Over 20 years ago, Tomas Kaberle, a 7th round pick, made the Leafs and stayed on their blue-line for over a decade, easily becoming the second-best defenseman in franchise history, after Borje Salming.
Unfortunately, since Kaberle the Leafs have been unable to take a player drafted outside the top ten and turn him into a star.
There is a good chance they can do that, and it's undersold how important it is.
Think of all the best teams of the Salary Cap Era and how they were augmented by supestars who weren't drafted highly - Chicago (Keith), Pittsburgh (Letang), Sharks (Pavelski) Kings (Quick), Wings (Datsyuk, Zetterberg), Canucks (Edler), Lightning (Point), Panthers (Forsling) and Boston (Bergeron).
The Leafs despertely need a player like that to augment their lineup.
Could it be Matthews Knies riding shot-gun with Mitch Marner and scoring 40 times?
Maybe it's Nick Robertson - every player who has scored as much as he did in the OHL at the age he did it at has scored 40 goals in an NHL season.
Or perhaps its Easton Cowan who would picked a lot higher if last year's draft was done over.
Bottom line: if the Leafs are going to win the Stanley Cup they need to find their own Duncan Keith.
3. What Happens With Mitch Marner?
MItch Marner has been given the Jake Gardiner treatment by the loudest portion of the Leafs fanbase this summer.
Fortunately for those of us not buying into the group-think, it seems this loud contingent of fans is just a bunch of people on social media falling victim to bad information. The vast, vast, vast majority of Leafs Fans are also huge Mitch Marner fans, and understand that he needs to be re-signed.
But will he be? Or will the Leafs succumb to the will of a very small minority of people who are experts at using the megaphone of social media to make it seem like they represnt a larger portion of the population than they really do?
I have a hard time believing the Leafs would seriously consider trading Marner when he has a full no-movement clause in his contract and is living the dream of every kid from southern ontario by actually playing, and starring, on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Add in the fact that teams who trade future hall of fame players always regret it.
Add in the fact that both Jack Eichel and Matt Tkachuk's new teams won the Stanley Cup almost immediately after acquiring them.
Add in the fact that the Leafs GM is the one who sent Tkachuk to Florida and ask yourself if he'd have the nerve to make his next big trade the one that sends Marner out of Toronto to win the Stanley Cup with another team.
It's pretty obvious that the Leafs have no choice to re-sign him.
The cost should be determined this week when Mikko Rantanen signs an extention with the Colorado Avalanche.
4. Is Joseph Woll the Real Deal?
Joseph Woll has performed extremely well in limited NHL playing time so far in his career.
Early last season he stole several games and was an early favorite for the Calder Trophy, only to go down for months with a high-ankle sprain.
When he returned the Leafs tried to make him into their playoff starter but he struggled and they ended up letting Sergei Samsonov try again.
But when Samsonov faultered, Woll stepped up huge in the playoffs.....only to miss game 7 with an injury.
if he wasn't so injury prone, he could already be an NHL superstar. He still might end up being one, but we just don't know.
If he stays healthy, and if he lives up to his potential, the Leafs could suddenly find themselves in a completely different level of contention.
The Leafs as of now are a good team whose past losses force everyone to underrate them. But if they are the same team but only with an elite goalie, then look out!
I realize it's a lot to ask of Woll to be both healthy for the first time ever, and to also become an elite player, but I don't think it's that unlikely. - he's obviously talented and a lot of those injuries are just bad luck.
5. Can Auston Matthews Finally Bring His Talent to the Playoffs?
This is really all that matters.
The Leafs took Boston to the seventh game, in OT, as underdogs, with Samsonov in net, despite the fact that Auston Matthews brough almost nothing to the series.
If Matthews is even half of what he was in the regular season, the Leafs make it to the second round easily, and after that, who knows?
Unfortunately, Matthews was sick and only scored one goal in five games, while missing two. It's not his fault exactly, but it just sucks because obviously the Leafs had to get unlucky to lose that series.
Last year vs Florida, same thing. Matthews played great and posted insane peripheral stats, but he again wasn't scoring. Credit to Bobrovski for playing well, but everyone knew Matthews had some kind of wrist problem and wasn't able to shoot his best. This plauged him through the entire season where "only" scored 40 times in 70 games, which for him is basically a crap season.
In fact, Matthews has been injured or playing through injuries in three of the last four playoff years. I realize that this an excuse but excuses can also be reasons.
I guarantee the Leafs would have more playoff sucess to date if they had a healthier Matthews in the last four years.
When healthy, Matthews has flirted with a goal-per-game over the last four seasons. If the Leafs get that kind of production in the playoffs, they will have a very good chance of winning the Stanley Cup.
Unfortuantely, he hasn't even scored at a point-per-game, let alone a goal-per-game, in the playoffs so far. However, he's going to eventually be healthy in the playoffs one of these years.
Maybe it's this year?
How the Toronto Maple Leafs answer these five questions will go a long way in determining if they finally live up to their potential.
manual
If Matthews is healthy in the playoffs, if the Leafs keep Marner and resolve his situation, if they get a strong showing from Woll, solve their centre-ice issues and are lucky enough to get a star turn from one of their young players, the 2024-25 season will be one to remember.