The Toronto Maple Leafs are in year nine of the Auston Mattews/Mitch Marner Era, and both players are in their primes.
Auston Matthews is 27 years-old, and while he's still in the first half of his career, the Toronto Maple Leafs are not going to have a better time to win than right now.
The only problem with that is that through bad luck, bad management or some combination of both, the team has won just a single playoff series in the first eight seasons they've played with the two best players they have ever had, and likely will ever have. That means that instead of celebrating their primes, we're just getting nervous about wasting them.
The last two seasons have seen the Leafs embrace a safe, low-risk approach to team management that has seen, almost without exceptions, the team load up on mid-range, name-brand free agents to help augment what was already here.
The problem with this strategy is one of game theory. Since the NHL has 31 teams that lose every single year, and since the salary cap and the existance of goalies add a level or randomness to hockey that other sports don't necessarily have, it doesn't pay to "play it safe" in the NHL. Especially since hockey is basically a zero-sum game in which no one cares who gets second place.
The randomness of NHL results coupled with the fact it's a "win or go home" league, means playing it safe is a bad strategy.
Doing so is like trying to build a bankroll by betting only on favorites - it can't be done because the deck is stacked against doing so.
Safe and Patient is not an option for the Toronto Maple Leafs
Winning in the NHL has a lot to do with staying healthy and having a goalie get hot at the right time, but you can definintely help your odds by adding star players to the roster.
Basically, the more stars you have, the better odds you have of beating the system. Teams that find stars to augment their drafted stars do the best. The Oilers added Zach Hyman and Mattias Ekholm to a roster they otherwise mostly drafted. They did that in free agency and with a trade. But most people thought the Hyman contract was bad at the time, and everyong thought Ekhom was too old. Both risks paid off.
The Panthers found Anton Lundell and Gustav Forsling, one they drafted and one they found on waivers. Adding stars in any way is great, but those are kind of flukes. But the Panthers also got two of their biggest pieces - Reinhart and Tkachuk - from trades. They took a couple of huge risks and it paid off.
These two teams, which are basiclly the NHL's two best teams right now, show that there are multiple ways to build teams, but that risk is a major factor in doing so. The Leafs - by all accounts - are a team that is afraid to take risks, and it's killing them.
For example, instead of Zadorov, whom was a riskier play, they went for Tanev who is not seen as being as risky at all. Any yet, Tanev is old and injury prone, and as good as he is, he lacks upside. Zadorov could turn out to be a terrible signing, but he could also be grand slam and turn into an elite defenseman. The risk / reward analysis suggests that Zadorov is the better pick because in pro sports, no one cares about second place. Basically: the odds are overwhelming that you do not win the Stanley Cup either way, so you might as well pick the one with the highest upside.
if the goal was just to be merely very good, the Leafs made all the smart choices this summer. The problem is that being merely very good doesn't matter in the all-or-nothing perspective of the NHL. Literally, there is no difference in how a team who makes the conference finals is viewed by history than a team that missed the playoffs.
That is why the Leafs need to take a big swing for the fences. They know they are unlikely to win with their current set-up. Whether it was flawed from the start or it just got too many chances and is now stale - it doesn't matter. What matters is that if they don't take a huge swing for the fences, they have no chance to win.
They might not win if they do, but with parity, a salary cap, injuries and goalies, the best approach is one of high risks and high rewards - basically the opposite of how the Toronto Maple Leafs are currently run.