The bizarre 1989-1990 Maple Leafs

[hacksaw7]

A team that always fascinated me for some reason. They were mired in some dark, embarrassing Ballard days at this point, coming off of two awful seasons, 62 points the previous year and 52 (and a playoff birth!) the year before that.

89-90 starts ugly and Toronto is 1-5 out of the gate. But from there on they go 37-33-4. Not only that but they suddenly score a ton of goals, 337, which is good for 3rd overall in the league. Goaltending though is a disaster as they allow 358 (19th out of 21). But this year must've seemed like an unexpected renaissance of sorts.

They played some wild memorable games. A few days after they blow a 7-3 3rd period lead to Detroit at home (ended in a 7-7 tie) they trail Boston, the best regular season team of 89/90 6-1 late in the 2nd, but somehow rally to tie and then win in OT. Few days after that they beat the Caps 8-6 in a game that featured a 9 goal 2nd period

They beat that years champs Edmonton twice. They beat the previous years champs Calgary 6-5. They would also lose to Chicago 9-6 and got walloped by Calgary 12-2. Had a nice win over Montreal that year too...but so many of their games were fun firewagon tilts and for the first time in a while they were winning (slightly, ha) more than they were losing.

Leeman has his 50 goal season. Damphousse establishes himself as one of the leagues top young forwards with 90+ pts. Ed Olczyk has one of his best seasons scoring close to 90 points. Daniel Marois has a great sophomore year scoring 39 in 68 games. Iafrate has his best season up to that point with 60+ pts and one of the leagues deadliest shots. Kurvers arrives from NJ and adds more offense from the blueline (though they give up a pick that NJD used to draft Niedermayer) Rob Ramage is added as a veteran presence. They have some quality guys like Fergus, Dave Reid. Wendel Clark as usual misses a lot of time, but he did score when in the lineup

Looking at that team in that moment you might think that if they fix goaltending, they could end up really contending in 90-91 and that the core of this team could accomplish something

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

not sure if it was just general leafs homerism but at the time i do remember bester being considered an upper tier young goalie in the same breath as tugnutt, essensa, and riendeau.

the next season was the rookie years of belfour, cujo, and richter, as well as hasek’s first nhl games. that was a big jump goaltending between 1990 and 1991.

 

[The Panther]

From 1986-87 onward, it did feel like the Leafs were on the verge of suddenly striding forward to become a contender. Expectations were high after a half-decent 1986-87 season (and mini playoff run)... and then 1987-88 happened. 1988-89 was another year of misery, with great management moves like trading Russ Courtnall for John Kordic. Brophy fired mid-season.

Then, suddenly, 1989-90. The team was clearly built for all offense / no defense, but as such they made out all right. A lot of guys with career seasons offensively, with nary a care for defense. Wasn't really built to last.

Amazing how awful they were early the following season. In 1990-91, they started the year 4-21-1. (No, not a typo!)

 

[tabness]

I've been slowly working on a retrospective on Borje Salming's last season in Detroit and of course part of the story is the Leafs deciding to move on from him, and what a sad turn of events for him that a guy who just seemed sick of losing in Toronto and went to what was considered the best team in the Norris in Detroit, only to join it in total freefall while the Leafs as flawed as they may have been had this incredible depth of scoring lol

For me, one of the most interesting games of the Leafs this year was Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Detroit Red Wings Box Score: March 2, 1990 | Hockey-Reference.com where in first period there were so many penalties that it was lucky that Leeman played D because I think at one point every Leafs defenseman except Iafrate was sent off for fighting lol

 

[FerrisRox]

not sure if it was just general leafs homerism but at the time i do remember bester being considered an upper tier young goalie in the same breath as tugnutt, essensa, and riendeau.

Allan Bester was *never* considered an upper tier young goalie. That is pure Toronto-media bias if you were ever given that impression.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Allan Bester was *never* considered an upper tier young goalie. That is pure Toronto-media bias if you were ever given that impression.

thx, i have always suspected that

 

[Michael Farkas]

A 5'7", 150 pound goalie was taken in the 3rd round of the 1983 NHL Draft, after being a 16th round pick in the OHL Draft, and was a platoon starter in the NHL that very season...

Of course, that same season, an American kid - fresh out of high school - won the Calder as a goalie...just a banner year for goaltending in the best league in the world...

It's a shame we don't have any footage, I wonder if any of the top 5 goalies in the world were playing in the NHL at this time...or maybe all of them were...we'll probably never know...sorry to ponder off-topically...

 

[Crosby2010]

I've been slowly working on a retrospective on Borje Salming's last season in Detroit and of course part of the story is the Leafs deciding to move on from him, and what a sad turn of events for him that a guy who just seemed sick of losing in Toronto and went to what was considered the best team in the Norris in Detroit, only to join it in total freefall while the Leafs as flawed as they may have been had this incredible depth of scoring lol

For me, one of the most interesting games of the Leafs this year was Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Detroit Red Wings Box Score: March 2, 1990 | Hockey-Reference.com where in first period there were so many penalties that it was lucky that Leeman played D because I think at one point every Leafs defenseman except Iafrate was sent off for fighting lol

What a fun game that would have been to attend. Those old Norris division games where the teams hated each other. Probably the biggest omission in games today is that sort of disdain teams had for each other. It is missed.

 

[markymarc1215]

Also of note...In 89-90, a kid by the name of Tie Domi made his debut and got in 2 games. He racked up 42 penalty minutes!

 

[Pominville Knows]

From 1986-87 onward, it did feel like the Leafs were on the verge of suddenly striding forward to become a contender. Expectations were high after a half-decent 1986-87 season (and mini playoff run)... and then 1987-88 happened. 1988-89 was another year of misery, with great management moves like trading Russ Courtnall for John Kordic. Brophy fired mid-season.

Then, suddenly, 1989-90. The team was clearly built for all offense / no defense, but as such they made out all right. A lot of guys with career seasons offensively, with nary a care for defense. Wasn't really built to last.

Amazing how awful they were early the following season. In 1990-91, they started the year 4-21-1. (No, not a typo!)

 

[MS]

Allan Bester was *never* considered an upper tier young goalie. That is pure Toronto-media bias if you were ever given that impression.

He certainly was in 1984 when he went straight from being Canada’s starter at the WJCs to starting 31 of Toronto’s last 38 games while still a teenager and basically ending Mike Palmateer’s career.

My copy of Brian MacFarlane’s 1984 NHL yearbook (sweet book, incidentally, if you can find a used copy online) has a 2-page feature on Bester, same as Tom Barrasso.

Both Bester and Mario Gosselin were getting pretty big hype at that point but both kind of had the same career track as the last generation of tiny goalies who were out of the NHL by the early 1990s.

 

[tabness]

What a fun game that would have been to attend. Those old Norris division games where the teams hated each other. Probably the biggest omission in games today is that sort of disdain teams had for each other. It is missed.

It's funny, Norris division games are well preserved and disseminated due to the hockey fights video community, especially the Wings with Probert and Kocur, but the Wings 1989-1990 season is probably the hardest to get old games from. I'm assuming this is at least partly due to Probert missing much of the year with the legal troubles, and Kocur playing 1RW and using those hands to score more lol

This game definitely is a classic for the fights though lol

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

What a fun game that would have been to attend. Those old Norris division games where the teams hated each other. Probably the biggest omission in games today is that sort of disdain teams had for each other. It is missed.

The most common-sense fix ive heard from downgoesbrown was that they need to revert the schedule back to deliberately max out the number of interdivisional matchups and keep the divisional playoff format. In particular emphasize more home & homes between divisional rivals that eventually make tempers boil over.

I cant understand why the nhl thinks its such a high priority to make sure matchups like tampa-san jose or phoenix-boston happen at least once a year over boston-montreal or tampa-toronto

 

[The Panther]

I cant understand why the nhl thinks its such a high priority to make sure matchups like tampa-san jose or phoenix-boston happen at least once a year over boston-montreal or tampa-toronto

Nor do I. But no pro-sports League has ever been dumber than the NHL at marketing its own strengths.

 

[quietbruinfan]

Bester had tremendous reflexes but was not good technically and very small. I do remember him beating the Bruins in a home and home including the aforementioned win in Toronto. Bester was the reason for it. He made stops I don't think anyone else would have-save perhaps Ron Tugnutt. We are talking a few Ray Bourque one timers from the dead slot here.

 

[hacksaw7]

fwiw in 1989-1990 for Bester, the top 5 games where Bester faced the most amount of shots (48, 45, 42, 42, 42)...he put up a 5-0-0 record in those starts. He did not let up more than 4 goals in any of those games. That's actually pretty impressive.

Interestingly he would resurface in 95-96 for Dallas after being out of the league for 3 full years. And he was actually pretty good for a bad Stars team. 4-5-1 with a 2.99 goals against. That would be his last NHL action

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

Nor do I. But no pro-sports League has ever been dumber than the NHL at marketing its own strengths.

it is unholy that John Ziegler probably has the best resume of any NHL el presidente/commish/whatever

 

[thegoldenyear]

The Leafs were my hometown team. Away at uni that year I watched a lot of the midweek games on my little black-and-white, and they never disappointed: loads of penalties (the Norris was a bloodbath in the late ‘80s), four-goal periods were commonplace, and their winning or losing was never a foregone conclusion. Seemed every other game was 7-4, 6-5, 7-5, 6-4.

I went to one that year - fam friends put me on the rails for Gretz just after New Year’s Day, and it WAS 7-4. Gretz scored off one of his ridiculously high slappers, and the camera caught my brother and I for a split-second over his shoulder, starting to stand to celebrate as the camera panned back to WG (we were never Leafs loyalists).

Watched one later in the winter that always comes to mind, fondly. Against Hartford - no historical, divisional or conference rival - the two just jammed all night long. Fights, testy scrums, randos scoring on broken plays. Pond hockey. And a 6-6 tie. Forget settling things on a shootout, I was exhilarated with the tie. I thought this deeply flawed team was the most exciting club in the league. Just a mess, but what a fun mess.

Playoffs happened. Blues applied some defensive measures and the Leafs were bounced in five easy steps. So it goes.

Next year the young’uns didn’t really develop, the soft middle-of-the-road players sagged, the goaltending was a joke. The spell was broken and the 80-point team of ‘89-‘90 was back to its 55, 60-point ways of previous. They seemed worse for having soared for one season. Fans were angrier than usual, Ballard was no longer an excuse, a 2-16 start begat trades, the OMG-what-if-the-pick-nets-Lindros-for-Jersey thing loomed.

Was it worth it for one year of exhilarating, deeply-flawed-and-quickly-exposed-in-April decency? Oh shit, sure it was!

 

[The Panther]

I went to one that year - fam friends put me on the rails for Gretz just after New Year’s Day, and it WAS 7-4. Gretz scored off one of his ridiculously high slappers, and the camera caught my brother and I for a split-second over his shoulder, starting to stand to celebrate as the camera panned back to WG (we were never Leafs loyalists).

 

[Stephen]

Before my time, but I believe Wendel Clark has started that those early 90s Leafs had more natural talent than the later muck and grind teams with Burns and Fletcher that put the team back on track.

Kind of remind me of the Vancouver Canucks of the 2020s a bit. Not quite a successfully rebuilt team but a good handful of offensive star power, inconsistent year to year and somewhat unpredictable in the standings.

 

[BraveCanadian]

It was a fun team to watch because they had a collection of young offensive talent that seemed to all be maturing together.

The downside was they were a pure run and run team, it wasn’t really goaltending letting them down so much as they gave up a lot of high quality chances.

I know I’ve said this on the board here before about this team, but I remember Harry Neale remarking during one game that they were such an exciting team because for them “no lead of theirs is safe and no lead of the other team is too much to overcome” or something to that effect.

Unfortunately, Leeman and Marois suffered shoulder injuries which took away their goal scoring, Iafrate had some injury trouble, Clark was always injured, and the Toronto coaching carousel continued and the potential of the team was never realized.

 

[GlitchMarner]

That team was a bit before I started watching hockey, but I assume the team was similar to the '98-'99 Leafs, who were also very high scoring and exciting to watch but not really built for playoff success.

 

[Stephen]

That team was a bit before I started watching hockey, but I assume the team was similar to the '98-'99 Leafs, who were also very high scoring and exciting to watch but not really built for playoff success.

Big time disagree there. The 1998-99 Leafs had a very underrated blueline and all-star goaltending from Curtis Joseph and went to the conference finals, partially on the back of completely shutting out the Philadelphia Flyers and then outgunning the Pittsburgh Penguins. I believe they led the league in scoring that year. Even if they weren't built to win a peak Dead Puck Era cup they were a great team and different than the 1989-90 team that was out in 5 games vs St. Louis.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Before my time, but I believe Wendel Clark has started that those early 90s Leafs had more natural talent than the later muck and grind teams with Burns and Fletcher that put the team back on track.

Kind of remind me of the Vancouver Canucks of the 2020s a bit. Not quite a successfully rebuilt team but a good handful of offensive star power, inconsistent year to year and somewhat unpredictable in the standings.

that's funny, i was going to make the same comparison, but not so much about the talent up front but just stunningly stupid GMing chasing a number one dman.

that 1990 spike by those leafs teams was on the back of new GM floyd smith picking up two impact dmen, new captain rob ramage for a 2nd round pick right before the draft (24th overall, became kent manderville, who the leafs eventually got back in the epic gilmour trade) and a future 1st rounder at the beginning of the season (3rd overall, famously became scott niedermayer). that made for a really deep d, with established young guys al iafrate and todd gill, veteran brad marsh not yet fallen off a cliff, and the young and at the time very raw luke richardson.

obviously, the short term gains of that d group end up being a disaster. kurvers was traded for brian bradley midway through the 1991 season, and ramage was let go in the expansion draft that summer.

it really was a carousel. a year later, smith traded his number one center eddie olczyk to winnipeg for dave ellett. then he traded the enigmatic al iafrate to washington for peter zezel and the physical stay-at-home bob rouse.

it was left to cliff fletcher to fill out that pat burns d corps by stealing jamie macoun (also in the epic gilmour trade) and sylvain lefebvre for almost nothing (a third rounder).

anyway, reminiscent of the wild ride that was jim benning passing up consensus pick matthew tkachuk (not to mention legit good d like chychrun, sergachev, and mcavoy) to draft olli juolevi, trading jared mccann and a second rounder for erik gudbranson, letting chris tanev walk because he'd given tyler myers this money (5 year, $30 million), then trading three expiring contracts and a top ten pick for oliver ekman-larsson's corpse.

 

[Stephen]

that's funny, i was going to make the same comparison, but not so much about the talent up front but just stunningly stupid GMing chasing a number one dman.

that 1990 spike by those leafs teams was on the back of new GM floyd smith picking up two impact dmen, new captain rob ramage for a 2nd round pick right before the draft (24th overall, became kent manderville, who the leafs eventually got back in the epic gilmour trade) and a future 1st rounder at the beginning of the season (3rd overall, famously became scott niedermayer). that made for a really deep d, with established young guys al iafrate and todd gill, veteran brad marsh not yet fallen off a cliff, and the young and at the time very raw luke richardson.

obviously, the short term gains of that d group end up being a disaster. kurvers was traded for brian bradley midway through the 1991 season, and ramage was let go in the expansion draft that summer.

it really was a carousel. a year later, smith traded his number one center eddie olczyk to winnipeg for dave ellett. then he traded the enigmatic al iafrate to washington for peter zezel and the physical stay-at-home bob rouse.

it was left to cliff fletcher to fill out that pat burns d corps by stealing jamie macoun (also in the epic gilmour trade) and sylvain lefebvre for almost nothing (a third rounder).

anyway, reminiscent of the wild ride that was jim benning passing up consensus pick matthew tkachuk (not to mention legit good d like chychrun, sergachev, and mcavoy) to draft olli juolevi, trading jared mccann and a second rounder for erik gudbranson, letting chris tanev walk because he'd given tyler myers this money (5 year, $30 million), then trading three expiring contracts and a top ten pick for oliver ekman-larsson's corpse.

That’s great analysis. The interesting connection here is Jim Benning, who was an early 1980s Leafs first rounder taken 6th overall in 1981 and probably ruined by promotion to the NHL too young as a smaller offensive defenseman. By the time the 1989-90 Leafs were rolling though, Benning had been traded to Vancouver of all places.

One generation later he picks Quinn Hughes 7th overall in 2018. Obviously Hughes has worked out for the Canucks, but it seems like the Benning era has some of that bad epegenetic memory from the 80s Leafs.