The Toronto Maple Leafs make several weird, bad decisions ahead of opening night

The Toronto Maple Leafs new, and it should be said, "potential" opening night lineup is a bizarre amalgamation of terrible decisions and ill-advised signings.

New Toronto Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube has a good reputation due to winning one of the flukiest, most goalie-based Stanley Cups of recent memory, but just because he once got lucky doesn't make him better than Sheldon Keefe, and Berube's opening night lineup makes you wish the Leafs had of made a better coaching decision this past summer.

The season is long, and things tend to work themselves out, but the opening night lineup, based on how the team finished camp, looks like it was drawn up by someone who has no information about what happened last year with this team.

Frankly, the number of bad decisions is shocking.

The Toronto Maple Leafs make several weird, bad decisions ahead of opening night

First, it's just outright dumb that the Leafs are apparently going to scratch Timothy Liljegren. Liljegren has three season where he has won his minutes, both by actual goals and by expected goals.

Last season, he played a ton of top four minutes, as proven by the fact that Auston Matthews turned out to be his most frequent linemate, and he won those too.

And not only are the Leafs going to dress the old and washed up Oliver Ekman-Larsson ahead of him, Liljegren probably won't even be in the lineup. This is not only a bad hockey decision, but even if the Leafs are so dumb as to want to trade Liljegren, they are sabotaging his value with absolutely brutal asset management.

Full credit for putting Domi on the wing, but how in the hell do they ignore the almost 4 points per 60 he and Auston Matthews scored during the last 20% of last season?

Also being ignored: The fact that Bobby McMann scored 13 goals in his last 30 games, which is a 40 goal pace. He seems to have lost his job to a 35 year old with one leg and almost zero hope of getting back to being the player he once was. Taking the name brand washed up guy over the young upandcomer isn't something the Leafs take lightly - they consider it their specialty, as they are also appearently going to sit Timothy Liljegren in favor of not one, but three non-NHL players.

Connor Timmins, Simon Benoit and Oliver Ekman-Larsson make up half of what must be the worst blue-line in the NHL. Timothy Liljegren, despite years of being a solid NHL player, appears on the outside looking in while the team dresses what, if anyone else wrote it out, would be called a joke lineup.

Dressing Ryan Reaves is unbelievable. The NHL's worst player was directly responsible for the Leafs being down 1-0 in two of the four games they lost in last years playoffs. His on-ice numbers are atrocious and he makes the entire team worse, while providing absolutely nothing. His presence in the Leafs lineup is an embarrassment.

Obviously, Holmberg at 3C is brutal as well. The team gave Nylander just one game at centre in the pre-season even though their GM failed to add a third centre to the team during the summer. A modern NHL team would be splitting up their 3 superstars in order to maximize how many non-star players can get a bump from playing with a star and to stretch their lineup.

And finally, to cap off the stupidity this lineup displays, the Toronto Maple Leafs appear to be sending Easton Cowan back to junior when the correct move is to develop him in the NHL rather than making him ride a bus in junior where he has less than nothing left to accomplish.

I have never, ever, in my entire life, seen a team so poorly managed (and I just got finished watching the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays) and we are not even one game into the inevitably disappointing tenure of Craig Berube. Keith Pelley, I hope you are paying attention.