The Toronto Maple Leafs: The Off-Balance, 2024/2025 Season Preview.
Once more, into the fire.
I remember once, asking my grandfather, Murray, just how he became a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.
Around seven or so, I didn’t yet realize just how loaded a question it was.
Consider:
Why do we cheer for a team that hasn’t actively competed for a championship since before the moon landing?
But he answered honestly.
Sharing an anecdote I hadn’t heard before and wouldn’t again.
Spending his first eight years coming of age deep in Northern Ontario, during the height of the Great Depression? Nothing came easy.
Summers were short, autumns, hard.
Winters, worse.
Midnight treks to the outhouse, coloured with waist high snow and air so thick with a cold you could feel coming before the leaves even began to fall.
There was one thing though, he said, that always seemed to help.
A little bit of warmth during those dark January nights.
Overlaid with static and carrying the distinct hum of sharpened steel. Granting the same courtesy toward two countries as it did towards one British Dominion.
It was, of course, the voice of legendary broadcaster Foster Hewitt. Sheltered far above the ice, within that Ballard-hated gondola which once famously graced the upper atmosphere of Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens.
Boys who through him, found the Maple Leafs and then, in time, became fathers.
Their sons, fathers themselves, each, from grandfather to grandson, alongside mothers, daughters and granddaughters too, generations thereafter (and since) “bleeding blue”.
There’s a heartwarming simplicity there, sure but as any self-respecting Toronto fan will tell you, as the team gears up for their season opener against Montréal on Wednesday night?
If you’re looking for simple, in this economy, buddy, you’re in the wrong business.
Optimists and doubters, cynics and the suits. Fourteen dollar beers and dreams of the Stanley Cup in colour.
Chaos, apathy and undying love.
The Leafs are back, baby.
Bring on The Passion.
Okay, positives first.
The Leafs should waltz their way through the regular season, just as they have for nearly a decade now.
New head coach Craig Berube, while publicly declaring his intention to have the team play a heavier, nose-to-the-grindstone style, has also acknowledged that straying too far from the established template is unlikely.
After all, the Leafs “Core Four” of stars and their immediate supporting cast, will continue to be one of the most talented nucleoli in the sport, certainly within the century-plus existence of the Leafs themselves (despite more questions than usual):
Freshly-minted captain Auston Matthews, who, coming off his third goal scoring title in four years, steps into his new role as not just the highest paid man in hockey but as the game’s top two-way player as well, a 200-foot powerhouse with no true equal. Notably, he fell a single goal shy of becoming just the ninth player in NHL history to put up 70 in a season in 2023/2024. Insignificant perhaps, to us mere mortals but such things, they eat at the best of best: even if you’re a three-time Rocket winner, a Selke Trophy finalist, who also finished last year fourth in Hart (MVP) voting. Wherever Matthews goes, the Leafs will follow.
William Nylander’s arc, from high end prospect to perennial trade candidate and now, top-dog, Toronto’s number-two, has been almost ten years in the making. If any one player can continue to excel in that role though, while expertly blocking out the outside noise, it is “Willy Styles”. He set a career-high in points last season (98) and has taken on something of an understated leadership role, as well (listen man, sometimes your teammates just need tough love). No, at 28 now, he won’t ever be a wholly reliable defensive option but as long as his offensive game does the necessary heavy lifting, the Leafs can count on his consistency.
Mitch Marner, following his visibly weak playoff showing, made it through a summer of trade rumours and comes into the season on the last year of his contract. Alongside GM Brad Treliving, he’s said all the right things and while he seems open to negotiating during the year, the reality is, anything Marner-related could quickly go sideways if/when he goes through a prolonged cold stretch. He is a hometown kid in the thick of his prime who plays an excellent, Selke-nominated two-way game, yet it often seems as though he is caught up in his own head by way of the media discourse and has lacked, for a while now, his once trademark enthusiasm. Moving on from Marner though, who is still a bonafide superstar regardless of his struggles, won’t be easy. The Leafs must tread carefully here, even if a fresh start, on both sides is no longer as impossible as it was just a few years ago.
The other hometown boy, John Tavares, is entering the final year of his contract too but per Treliving earlier this summer, the captaincy handover, which Tavares publicly supported, won’t play a role in any potential extension talks (which, okay Brad, keep towing the company line on that one). But at 34, while Tavares no doubt has some strong hockey left, he isn’t an eleven-million dollar man anymore either. How much money would, should, the Leafs be willing to grant him then, their always-tricky cap situation considered? Offensively, where most of his on-ice value lies, he had the lowest point total of his career (in a non-shortened season) since his rookie year in 2023/2024 but he did have, to be fair, a strong exhibition slate. Maybe though, that’s the key. Still a key part of the leadership group but no longer “the guy” as Matthews fully takes the spotlight, a quieter (relatively speaking) role could be just the thing Tavares needs.
Elsewhere, as expected, there haven’t been too many question marks regarding the team’s makeup as the regular season looms.
Collectively, the Matthews-led quartet still accounts for just over half of Toronto’s salary cap (53.2% to be exact, according to The Hockey News) and most of their supporting cast, from the established guys, to the newcomers, were already pencilled in weeks ago: Joesph Woll will be the number-one man in net, Matthew Knies, Morgan Rielly, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, etc, there aren’t any surprises about where these players are slotting in.
All that being equal however, following Monday’s roster confirmation deadline, the team’s big picture did come into clearer focus.
Notably, veteran forwards Max Pacioretty and Steven Lorentz, who both came into camp on PTOs signed one-year contracts on Monday, adding a few different elements to the team’s bottom six.
Pacioretty, following a series of difficult Achilles injuries, is no longer the 30-goal man he was during his career-best years in Montréal but should be able to chip in consistently with a reduced role. Lorentz, coming off a Stanley Cup championship with the Panthers, has clearly been envisioned as an effective energy player, albeit in limited minutes.
Goalie Matt Murray and defenceman Marshall Rifai cleared, after being placed on waivers Sunday but both are call-up options, as they’ll begin their seasons with the AHL’s Marlies (meanwhile, per Sportsnet, Bobby McMann and Timothy Liljegren will be healthy scratches on Wednesday, while top prospect Easton Cowan was sent back to the OHL to continue his development).
And Nick Robertson?
Well, after rescinding his earlier trade request, the winger bagged five goals in exhibition play and has made the Opening Night roster for the first time in his career.
It feels like a lifetime ago now, doesn’t it, Robertson, joining the Leafs as a teenager during the 2020 playoffs and immediately making an impact. But the following years saw him set back with a seemingly never-ending-stream of injuries or an inability to fully crack the lineup, as he shuttled between the big club, the press box and the Marlies.
Now, trade requests are rarely water under the bridge and there aren’t any guarantees he’ll stick around long-term (having only signed a one-year, prove-it deal) but Robertson, still just 23, with his strong goal-scoring touch, has talent to spare when placed in the right position and used effectively (and he has the backing of his new coach, too - that helps)
Once the team’s prospect of note, having, at last, solidified his place, it could be the springboard he needs in becoming an everyday NHLer.
And yet.
And yet, ultimately, the Leafs, for all their around-the-edges changes, new coaches and a new captain, are still very much the same team that bowed out in seven to Boston last May.
There was no way they’d run it back, we said then, I said then but well, here they are, having done, really, just that. What more can they do, with so much money tied up in their core players: evidently, not much.
This group, for better or worse, will live and die on that sword, however far it takes them.
Maybe though, it will finally click, the way it has been continually envisioned. The stars will, all at once, carry their momentum into the playoffs, their goaltending will hold up, the defence will push through.
Yes, there is much to be said for optimism in October but when all is said and done, the Leafs are still, still, looking to win their first Stanley Cup in 57 years.
The players know it, the fans know it, the, to-be new corporate overlords know it.
Nobody is operating under any illusions here.
The punchlines, the golf course jokes, they persist but they’ll only land for so long. Could it be, after all this time? Could this be the year?
Could be.
But we’ll find out soon enough.
It all starts Wednesday.
Loved the article Ryan. Hope springs eternal in October as a Leaf fan. Our two favorite lines are "it feels like this could be the year" and "there's always next year". 😊 Go Leafs Go! Thanks for the article.