Toronto Maple Leafs Are Primed for Another 1st Round Loss

The Toronto Maple Leafs have four of the best forwards in hockey, yet this team is still a joke.

When the playoffs start next year, the Toronto Maple Leafs will have secured 100-plus points in the regular season and may have home-ice advantage in the First Round, but unless this roster changes, they'll be sent packing early, once again.

Having only one, or two, of these elite forwards is all you need in order to be successful in the playoffs, but for some reason, management hasn't changed and continues to run it back.

I don't know how many times I can type this, but something needs to change and it needs to happen fast. Why does this organization value regular season success so much?

Toronto Maple Leafs Are Primed for Another 1st Round Loss

The Montreal Canadiens and Florida Panthers are two recent examples of teams who made the Stanley Cup Final after sneaking into the playoffs, but the biggest example that the Leafs should look at is the 2011-12 LA Kings.

They were the 8th seed heading into the playoffs and then ended up winning the whole thing. They didn't have a 60-plus goal scorer on the roster. In fact, they didn't even have two players who's goal totals equaled 60. Instead, their highest goal-scorer and point contributor was Anze Kopitar who finished withbut instead their highest goal-scoring player was Anze Kopitar with 25 goals and 76 points.

But you know who they had on that roster? They had players who were built for the playoffs and were gritty. Dustin Brown, Justin Williams and Mike Richards didn't tear up the scoresheet during the regular season, but they contributed almost every night in the playoffs. They played a hard-nosed game and battled as a team, resulting in 16 wins in the spring.

Hockey, more than any other sport, is a team game.

You need all four lines to contribute and similar to the LA Kings, you need a No. 1 goalie who can steal the show. The Leafs don't have a legitimate starting goalie right now, but instead have four forwards who put up points in the regular season who can't get it done in the playoffs.

You could make the argument that MLSE is only keeping the core-four around again to sell jerseys and make money during an expensive renovation of Scotiabank Arena, but Toronto loves grittiness. We love Gary Roberts, Darcy Tucker and Tie Domi more than we love skill, so by trading the core and acquiring those types of players, I'd argue that someone like Tom Wilson could outsell William Nylander.

I hate rambling about how much I hate this team, but this is where I stand in the middle of July.

Maybe my thoughts will change if Joseph Woll turns into Patrick Roy, or William Nylander learns how to back-check, but until that happens, I'm going to continue to be angry about this current management wasting another year of Auston Matthews' prime.