Toronto Maple Leafs fans are eternal optimists. After 58 consecutive years of disappointment, shared grief needs some optimism to help dull the annual springtime pain.
This year’s story may finally be different. The makeup of the current team could be just different enough from previous iterations to achieve some playoff success. The Toronto Maple Leafs are certainly no sure thing to bring home the Stanley Cup, but their odds of winning are probably better than they’ve been in quite some time.
Why, you may ask, should anything be different this time around? Well, let’s start behind the bench. Despite guiding the Leafs to a 212-97-40 regular season record, former head coach Sheldon Keefe won only a single playoff series in his five-year tenure.
New bench boss Craig Berube previously won a Stanley Cup coaching the St. Louis Blues, and has instituted a somewhat different playing style. The Toronto Maple Leafs have given up fewer goals this year compared to 2023-2024, but that has come at the cost of scoring fewer themselves.
Berube's more traditional north-south type of play, along with a greater focus on defensive responsibility, is more closely aligned to the kind of close-checking hockey the team will see come playoff time. The high-risk, high-flying hockey that we saw previously every regular season was invariably shut down in the playoffs, and a lack of playoff success predictably followed.
Further, Berube seems to have earned his players’ trust, and instilled some faith in each other. The Toronto Maple Leafs have demonstrated many times this year that they will not give up, no matter how far behind in a game they might fall. Although Keefe was a good coach, it seemed he might have “lost the room” somewhat by the end of last season.
Goaltending will take the Toronto Maple Leafs far
The next reason for feeling good about the upcoming playoffs is that the Leafs have the best goaltending they’ve had in many years. GM Brad Treliving struck gold when he signed Anthony Stolarz to a two-year, $5M deal last summer. Stolarz has been fantastic, putting up a 2.21 GAA and .923 save percentage (stats per naturalstattrick.com). Joseph Woll has also continued to develop into a fine goalie, providing strong insurance should Stolarz falter or get injured.
Surprisingly, we can also now call the Toronto Maple Leafs defense corps a strength. Chris Tanev is a shot-blocking machine, and playing alongside Jake McCabe, they form a top-notch shutdown pairing. Trade deadline acquisition Brandon Carlo has added size and backbone to the team, and Morgan Rielly is an experienced veteran, even though he’s struggled at times. Oliver Ekman-Larsson has played well, and even Simon Benoit has turned into a very useful player.
Finally, the Toronto Maple Leafs may have stumbled upon just the right circumstances among their forward group to propel the team into the second playoff round and beyond.
Mitch Marner will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, and playing for a new contract will likely drive him to hit the 100-point mark for the first time in his career. Similarly, John Tavares is in the last year of his contract, and may hit the 40-goal mark for only the second time in his career.
Auston Matthews has been playing through injuries this year which appear to be hampering his shot. As a result, he has upped his playmaking abilities while continuing his fine defensive zone play. William Nylander has scored a career-high 45 goals.
Matthew Knies has quickly turned his obvious potential into actual on-ice results. The 22-year-old can score, create offense, hit, retrieve pucks, and provide a hulking net-front presence on the power play. Knies is the perfect complement to the Matthews-Marner pairing.
The rest of the forwards have been hot and cold offensively this season, but for the most part have played solid defensive hockey and brought plenty of energy and more grit than in past years.
It’s true that if a team gets strong goaltending and their forwards score, they will likely go far in the playoffs. The Toronto Maple Leafs have been missing those key ingredients in recent years. This year, finally, hopefully, just maybe……it will be different.