The Toronto Maple Leafs: The Off-Balance, 2023/2024 Season Preview.
If nothing else? They have The Passion.
I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend!
My family got to the bottom of a particularly vexing, 30-plus-year old mystery on Sunday, which was quite exciting. And like most Thanksgiving mysteries, it began and ended with an overindulgence in gravy.
Anyway, if you missed them, here are my season previews for the Ottawa Senators and Edmonton Oilers.
As always, thank you for reading Off-Balance! Until next time.
Ryan.
Through a family friend who worked with the team, I remember my parents snagging an invite to a Maple Leafs practice, sometime in the early 2000s.
Inconsequential maybe, in the grand scheme of things but one moment of that day has always stuck with me.
Four-year old Ryan, he didn’t know much about offsides, analytics or defensive positioning but he did know Tie Domi.
Planted behind the net, face pressed up against the glass, I watched in awe as he worked a stick-handling drill with a deftness you wouldn’t expect - especially from the man who would finish his NHL career with the most fighting majors in hockey history.
But as the whistle blew, he pushed his pucks up against a cone and promptly took off, as did everyone else.
It wouldn’t be until a few years later that I learned what was going on. That time-honoured tradition.
What else? Laps.
Though as he leaned in, taking an impossibly tight turn around the net, Domi caught my eye, smiling, as he zipped past.
As if just to say: “Wassup buddy?”
It was the coolest thing. It has, over the past few days, also served as something of a reminder: as a Leafs fan, time is circular.
Some twenty-some years later, there is still a Domi playing in Toronto, albeit, one with a much different skill set (Tie’s son, Max, signed with the team in the off-season).
Contract uncertainty surrounds their Swedish superstar (at one time it was Mats Sundin, now it is William Nylander) and the team, as ever, is desperate to win their first Stanley Cup in decades.
The more things change, they more they stay the same.
Now, the last time I wrote about Toronto (in the first ever Off-Balance newsletter, no less) I expected a major shake-up.
I got it.
Not ten minutes after I published, having devoted a significant amount of digital ink towards the team, what needed to change and the cloud of uncertainty hanging over General Manager Kyle Dubas? Dubas was out, fired, with just under a month left on his contract.
Ten minutes!
Tempt fate and it’ll promptly hit you over the head like a drunk-on-Symbiote power Tobey Maguire, à la, Spider-Man 3.
So I thought it best to wait.
Until the dust settled, until summer came and went and until training camps wound down, before jumping the gun on any bold predictions (the Leafs, having concluded their exhibition slate, will finalize their rosters on Monday and begin their season in earnest on Wednesday night).
But the time has come at last. Toronto, staring down what will be yet another high-stakes season for the franchise, as if there is any other kind.
Just what should we expect from the Leafs in 2023/2024?
Well, a non-stop media circus over trivial nonsense probably! As usual.
No, I’m just kidding.
(Not really, though).
As The Athletic’s James Mirtle reported in May, in the wake of Dubas’ exit, it came to light that the relationship between the former GM and Leafs president Brendan Shanahan had been strained for quite some time.
Shanahan, often pulling rank on specific moves he wanted made, ones that Dubas disagreed with and as a result, requesting more autonomy when it came to his decision-making.
Maybe he’ll get that in Pittsburgh, where he is now both President of Hockey Ops and GM for the Penguins.
You can’t help but wonder though - if the two most public and more important front office executives couldn’t see eye-to-eye, how much did that impact the team on the ice over these past few years?
And on the same hand, perhaps Shanahan, now in the tenth season of swearing by the fan-dubbed “Shanaplan” - his so-called championship blueprint that has yet to result in any championships and just a single playoff round won, will see his leadership and job security further tested if the Leafs cannot “get it done” when it matters most.
Because although new GM, Brad Treliving, made a series of intriguing moves over the summer, shoring things up around the edges, they are still, at large, the same team that bowed out in five to Florida last spring, including head coach Sheldon Keefe, who was signed to a two-year extension in August.
Will it be enough?
Well, it will make a world of difference if Auston Matthews can stay healthy.
The 2021/2022 NHL MVP couldn’t match his 60-goal output last year, as he played through a series of aliments, most notably a significant hand injury, in addition to knee troubles that caused him to miss time… but that’s the thing.
Even in a “down year”, where his shooting percentage was the worst of his career, where he often lacked his trademark dynamism and at times seemed offensively hesitant?
He still put up 40 goals, 80-plus points and played a strong 200-foot game befitting his status as the team’s number-one man down the middle.
If that is his baseline, it is career-best work for many. And it helps that he won’t be alone:
Mitch Marner continues to evolve his game. Once considered nothing but an undersized, offensive-only player, to see his growth over the past few years has been nothing short of remarkable. He is a relentless back-checker, kills penalties with abandon and finished third in Selke voting last season, all while living up to his offensive billing, where he is a lock for 90-odd points, at minimum.
William Nylander walked into camp on an expiring contract but, as expected, seemed completely unfazed, which shouldn’t be a surprise anymore (I mean, we’re talking about a guy who pulls off the “university TA” look flawlessly). The perfect foil for the pressure-cooker that is the Toronto media, he is cool, confident and a player who continually expands his game, reaching 40 goals for the first time last season. It seems like the Leafs will experiment with him at centre going forward, a position he has only played sporadically at the NHL level (supposedly to lessen John Tavares’ workload and providing the group en masse with greater versatility). Most players, in a contract year, moving to a new position? Forget it. But if anyone can thrive under that pressure? It is Nylander.
Captain John Tavares turned 33 in September. And for all the criticisms often brought up against him, from his defensive game to his declining speed, (which was never plus-positive, to be fair) he remains an effective point-a-game player, if someone who was never worth the sheer dollar amount promised by his 11-million a year contract. More time spent on the wing and less as the “number one” guy on any given shift, should allow him greater offensive leeway, where he is still a strong contributor.
Outside of the core, however, the supporting cast has undergone a shift.
Alexander Kerfoot, Michael Bunting and Justin Holl are gone. Matt Murray and Jake Muzzin are both on IR, while Joseph Woll in net and Timothy Liljegren on the blue-line, seem set for bigger roles.
Woll, who did as well as he could have in limited playoff work, should more easily split duties with presumptive starter Ilya Samsonov.
And ideally, Liljegren will take some of the pressure off teammate Mark Giordano, who at 40, is the oldest player in the sport.
He was effective during most of last season but seemed outgunned come playoff time - even as a depth piece, if the Leafs plan to roll him out consistently, not overextending him by the halfway mark will be key.
And there is the hope that the team’s newest players (Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi, Ryan Reaves and John Klingberg most prominently) will add additional elements throughout the lineup.
Offensive edge, for Domi and Bertuzzi, mixed with a hard-nosed attitude that has often been lacking in Toronto and something fully exemplified by Reaves, who knows his role, as a bottom of the lineup enforcer and plays it to a tee.
In camp, the Leafs worked with Klingberg as the primary power play quarterback, a different look but also something that, in replacing Morgan Rielly in that spot, was probably a long time overdue.
That isn’t to say that Rielly was entirely ill-suited to the role (the Leafs had the second-best power play percentage in hockey last year, the best, the season before) but battling injuries and with decreased counting stats, it stands to reason that a new player in the role, if only on a part-time basis, may provide a fresh dynamic.
Others, like rookie Matthew Knies, who looked strong in a limited showing last spring, seem primed to take that next step and become full-time contributors: even if their impact is limited somewhat, as they grow accustomed to the rigours, the ebbs-and-flows, of professional hockey.
Fraser Minten, at 19, may have played his way into a roster spot thanks to a solid camp and in the same breath, Easton Cowan has also looked terrific in exhibition play - but Cowan, relative to his standing, would be hard-pressed to truly solidify a place in the lineup.
Another year in junior, the general thinking goes, beckons… but it may not be long before he starts making his way up the ladder.
And what of Nick Robertson? Once touted as the Leafs prospect of the future, his past three seasons have been decimated by injuries.
Since the 2020/2021 season, across both the NHL and AHL, he has played in exactly 82 games - or one full NHL season.
The pure skill is there, of that, there is no question but his inability to stay healthy has seen his opportunities start to dwindle.
Which is odd to say, for someone who is 22. Progress is never linear but equally so, pro sports are an unforgiving business. He has already been leapfrogged on the depth chart.
If Robertson cannot stay healthy, more so if his season begins with the AHL’s Marlies, which is likely, his future with the big club will continue to grow cloudier.
But the players on the outside fringe will only move the needle so much.
The playoffs, ultimately, are all that matter.
For most of the past twenty years, some semblance of regular season success was the benchmark, if only because Toronto was usually well out of the race by the trade deadline.
That hasn’t been a problem in a while.
They were the fourth-best team in all of hockey last season. The offense was strong, their defense, often a point of criticism, was effective. Their goaltending was good enough (if not not great).
But when I wrote about the Leafs in May, I was worried that they would simply run it back once more, banking on the work of their stars and it seems they’ve done just that.
There is only so much they can do, to be fair, with limited cap space and a window of contention that needs to be maximized.
Again, as I’ve said before, overall, this group of players is probably the most talented the franchise has ever had, certainly within my lifetime.
Talent alone though, is no longer enough.
Their first round hurdle has been cleared but if they find themselves stymied once more, if their “Core Four” can only score three goals between them in the second round, it won’t matter how well Woll, Domi or Klingberg played or how seamlessly Matthew Knies adapted in his first full season.
But maybe they’ll finally see it through.
Maybe all the pieces will finally fall in place, maybe they’ll finally fulfill the hopes and dreams this franchise has continually dashed over the past half-century.
We’ll see come the spring. But for now, we have October.
And don’t you know? You can never put a Leafs fan down in October.
We’re an optimistic bunch.