Toronto Maple Leafs Need to Stop Playing It Safe and Make More High-Risk Moves
The Toronto Maple Leafs are the NHL's safest and most boring team.
For years, the Toronto Maple Leafs have played the odds, and it hasn't gotten them anywhere. Their philosophy has worked, just not well enough. The fact is, if they played in a different division, or if they hadn't gotten screwed over worse than any other team in Covid, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.
But we are.
The Leafs have constantly failed, at least in terms of results. But it's way too easy to just say they are failures - they've done well, been constantly competitive, and they have also been unlucky.
Toronto Maple Leafs Need to Stop Playing It Safe and Make More High-Risk Moves
They've also played it pretty safe over the last few years. No big crazy trades, no long-shots.
They follow all the rules that smart teams are supposed to follow - don't go big on goalies, don't over pay other team's vets in free-agency, cycle out your expensive players for young ones, etc.
They signed Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi to one-year deals. They let players such as Andreas Johnson, Kasperi Kapanen, Ilya Miheyev and Zach Hyman (oops!) go rather than pay them.
At the dealine, they've rarely taken big swings, just low-risk moves. They haven't ever really gone "all in" by going after an Erik Karlsson or Jake Guentzel at the deadline.
Even with goalies, they have played it safe. Until they fired Sheldon Keefe their game style was predicated on east-west, short passes and having puck possession. Despite having Matthews and Marner, the Leafs played a super-safe game, never content to just trade chances and count on the fact that no one could compete with their offense.
Ironically, the Leafs haven't rushed the puck or made long passes since Mike "Defensive Reputation" Babcock was their coach.
The point/hypothesis here is that the Leafs are doing everything right when it comes to being an annual contender, but that by being so safe in all of their moves, they never get to hit the highest highs. Sure, they also avoid the lowest lows, but what we end up with is a team just good enough to compete, never great enough to dominate.
Maybe if the Leafs played in an easier division their style would work better, but the fact is, you need a lot of luck to get through the Atlantic Division - their probably isn't a team in this year's playoffs who played a tougher set of Series than Boston facing Toronto and Florida back-to-back.
That is why, this summer, the Leafs have to abandon their safe ways. They have to get crazy and make big bold moves. In the NHL, non-star name-brand players are a lot closer to replacement players than star players. In the NHL being very good but not winning the cup isn't considered any better than being total garbage - in fact, it's worse because you don't get a free star player if you don't completey suck.
Add in the variance level of the NHL Playoffs and you've got a system set up to reward teams that take a lot of risks. Since there is no difference in failing safe or failing crazy, playing it as safe as the Leafs do might *if my theory is correct* be the worst thing you can do.
It's Time to Get Crazy
The safe trade packages people put out for Mitch Marner are huge losers. Every single "realistic" Marner trade is bad for the Leafs. They might as well just fold the franchise as trade him or Shea Theordore and a late first.
If the Leafs wanted to be bold, they would bet on their scouting dept. and trade Marner for a package of young players who could potentially be stars on cheap contacts.
They would make the big play for a goalie they believe can be a FRANCHISE GOALIE. Or they could do the high-risk move of entering the season with Marner a pending UFA and see what happens. Its risky, but it could pay off.
And of course, they would give big money to the league's highest risk highest reward free-agent. Nikita Zadorov, a 6'6 monster with the statistics of a decent third liner, but whose ability to be huge, stop the rush one way and join it the other make him a potential late-blooming superstar who can patrol the Leafs top pairing for years.
This is not the time to trade Marner for a few reasonably paid players, to sign a tandem partner for Joseph Woll and sign a mid-range defender like Brett Pesce.
No, if you trade Marner, you Hail Mary it and risk looking like an idiot to potentially hit a grand slam.
You identify and bet on a goalie you think can be a top-five option in the NHL.
You make a big, bold bet on a defenseman.
The fact is, the NHL is just too random to rely on making the "right" move and hoping that never completely screwing up gets you to the finish line. No matter what happens this summer, next year in the playoffs the Leafs will either play one of the best teams in the NHL in the opening round, or they'll win their division and play a Stanley Cup Final-worthy matchup in the second round.
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Faced with that, why play it safe? The Leafs need to risk being awful to achieve greatness.