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Toronto Maple Leafs are surprisingly underperforming

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Usually teams start off slow or take a step back in development after long, tough playoff runs threatening for the Cup. So I have no idea what’s going on with the Leafs? Have they run out of things to play for cause they got their fill of respect in the hand shake line?
 
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Bounces R Way said:
It would be easy to write it off as early season struggles but I just don't think they're that good this year. Might be in tough to grab a divisional spot.
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Their team isn't much different this year than it was last year.

However, Auston Matthews scoring at a 67 goal pace last year covered-up a lot of flaws that were in their 20 player roster.

It remains to be seen if he can start scoring at that pace again. If not, Toronto is going to need some of their depth to step-up and start overachieving relative to their career norms.

Soundwave said:
They'll be fine. They likely partied too hard in Vegas and/or had some "entertainment" brought up to their rooms. I do think losing a pretty good player every year season after season because they (to their credit) they have had too many good players does catch up to a team a bit though.

They've lost over the years Kadri, Hyman, Mikyhev, Brown, Kapanen, etc. I think that does take a bit of a toll, but their shooting percentage is wonky right now, they'll likely snap out of it eventually.
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You make some good points.

However, a big reason they have been bleeding talent over the years is because of Dubas not understanding that you need more than 5 players.

He has paid his top 5 players so much that they are forced to fill the bottom half of their roster with bargain-bin players that nobody else wants.
 
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They have had a harsh reality check last few years that what they do in regular season doesn’t matter if they go out in the first round. They look uninspired and uninterested to start the year.

I expect them to get out of this funk before it gets ugly but if they don’t then Keefe is out the door before Christmas.
 
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Matty Sundin said:
They have had a harsh reality check last few years that what they do in regular season doesn’t matter if they go out in the first round. They look uninspired and uninterested to start the year.

I expect them to get out of this funk before it gets ugly but if they don’t then Keefe is out the door before Christmas.
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Could you really see a scenario where Dubas fires Keefe without himself being fired?
 
Matty Sundin said:
They have had a harsh reality check last few years that what they do in regular season doesn’t matter if they go out in the first round. They look uninspired and uninterested to start the year.

I expect them to get out of this funk before it gets ugly but if they don’t then Keefe is out the door before Christmas.
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If Keefe is gone then Dubas should be gone too.

Keefe was hand-picked by Dubas. Dubas couldn't wait to find any excuse he could find to fire Babcock so that he could bring his buddy Keefe onto the team.

At what point does Dubas take any blame for constructing a roster in which 5 players take 60% of the salary-cap?
 
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TheNumber4 said:
Could you really see a scenario where Dubas fires Keefe without himself being fired?
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How many coaches has Dubas hired? I can see how he’s on the hot seat but I wouldn’t think firing Keefe early-mid season would do him in. Many GMs getting plenty more coach hire/fires before they’re canned.


Does anyone know who Dubas would actually be replaced with? Somebody expected to be great, or just ‘somebody else’?

I’ve written this out in multiple threads and I don’t want to write it out in detail again, but Dubas is better than he gets credit for, and likely wouldn’t be on the hot seat in most markets. Replacing somebody just to replace them isn’t a good idea, how many GMs get replaced with somebody arguably worse?
 
They started slow last year too and they’ll probably turn it around, but the team could very well take a step back. Goaltending is still up in the air, Muzzin possibly done, Tavares/Giordano a year older…
 
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jcs0218 said:
Their team isn't much different this year than it was last year.

However, Auston Matthews scoring at a 67 goal pace last year covered-up a lot of flaws that were in their 20 player roster.

It remains to be seen if he can start scoring at that pace again. If not, Toronto is going to need some of their depth to step-up and start overachieving relative to their career norms.


You make some good points.

However, a big reason they have been bleeding talent over the years is because of Dubas not understanding that you need more than 5 players.

He has paid his top 5 players so much that they are forced to fill the bottom half of their roster with bargain-bin players that nobody else wants.
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You can do that if you drafted well enough to fill out the roster with prospects. Won't stay that cheap but if you have solid prospect pool depth you can have a very top heavy salary cap structure for 3-5 ish years.

Leafs aparently don't have that and had to sign random cheap veteran journeyman to fill out the roster
 
Im not surprised, we didnt do anything to upgrade goaltending, Defense is more of the same, Next to nothing for salary cap so the only signings we could do were "depth"signings.
 
Their defense and goaltending is injured.

Muzzin/Benn/Liljegren/Murray all on LTIR already.

Kallgren is not an NHL goaltender, he's giving them a .857 save percentage playing powerhouses like San Jose & Arizona. Everytime they have to play him, it's a loss, especially with an injured D.

VanillaCoke said:
Need defense big time, Holl is hilariously terrible and they keep putting him out there
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They got 3D injured, not much choice.
 
Matthews and co. won’t stay quiet for much longer. Assuming goaltending is firm, they’re still easily be a playoff team.
 
They'll hit their level at some point. I don't really worry about RS with them. They'll make the playoffs and that's all that counts.
 
They've been a Cinderella team the last couple of years riding the pumpkin carriage of the COVID fairy godmother. At heart they're a bubble playoff team, and that's where they're currently at...just like 2020, 2019, etc.
 
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SheldonJPlankton said:
They've been a Cinderella team the last couple of years riding the pumpkin carriage of the COVID fairy godmother. At heart they're a bubble playoff team, and that's where they're currently at...just like 2020, 2019, etc.
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I hope you feel the same way about Tampa. Rode the COVID fairy godmother to 2 Cups after getting swept in the first round.

They got 4 players on LTIR, 3D and a goalie. They got the same record as Florida, better than Tampa. They're currently tied for 2nd in the Atlantic, which is exactly where they were last year. Not 4th in the league at the moment, like last season though.
 
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Divine said:
I hope you feel the same way about Tampa. Rode the COVID fairy godmother to 2 Cups after getting swept in the first round.

They got 4 players on LTIR, 3D and a goalie. They got the same record as Florida, better than Tampa. They're currently tied for 2nd in the Atlantic, where is exactly where they were last year. Not 4th in the league at the moment, like last season though.
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Playoff success does not equal regular season success. Totally different mechanics; see Leaf total lack of playoff success for the last two decades. Plus, Tampa being swept was an outlier. Pre-COVID they were overall successful too.

Having said that, I don't mind asterisks for the most part. Many teams, including the Leafs, deserve them.
 
SheldonJPlankton said:
Playoff success does not equal regular season success. Totally different mechanics; see Leaf total lack of playoff success for the last two decades. Plus, Tampa being swept was an outlier. Pre-COVID they were overall successful too.

Having said that, I don't mind asterisks for the most part. Many teams, including the Leafs, deserve them.
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It doesn't make much sense to argue the regular season was affected by Covid, but not the playoffs. It's all or nothing. Especially considering the two Covid playoffs, the Leafs lost to the Stanley Cup Finalist. So to say they benefitted from Covid, but not the teams that won the Cup makes 0 sense.

The Tampa core did not win a Cup before Covid.
 
Divine said:
It doesn't make much sense to argue the regular season was affected by Covid, but not the playoffs. It's all or nothing.

The Tampa core did not win a Cup before Covid.
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Different animals. The playoffs were minimally impacted. The regular season more so...see the North division.

Tampa was a SC finalist prior to COVID with multiple seasons of limited playoff success.
 
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Divine said:
I hope you feel the same way about Tampa. Rode the COVID fairy godmother to 2 Cups after getting swept in the first round.

They got 4 players on LTIR, 3D and a goalie. They got the same record as Florida, better than Tampa. They're currently tied for 2nd in the Atlantic, which is exactly where they were last year. Not 4th in the league at the moment, like last season though.
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Tampa core and multiple key support guys specifically who’ve been on the Bolts all this time have been to four Cup Finals and several Conference Finals (including the cup finals years). Each of those years they won the cup or lost to the cup winner. Way more than Covid went into their cup runs

Also they have core and support players on their recent two cups who hadn’t been on those early deep runs in particular, but went on deep runs with other teams before joining. Those two cup runs/this Bolts team is as legit as it gets. Easily right at the top tier for team success the last like 10 years


I wouldn’t use “Cinderella” exactly (applies more to the Habs. Whole lot of great timing and convenience working for them then), but I assume that guy is talking about the Canada division possibly misleadingly making the Leafs and Oilers look like top tier teams, which completely failed to pan out (again) that year.


Regardless of what you think of the cup finals opponents those years (on the one hand they possibly; likely w the Habs; wouldn’t have made the playoffs had the season worked normally, but on the other hand they came back more prepared than the other teams),

the Bolts absolutely faced multiple, at least two, very tough eastern opponents each year; and the Stars looked like they were gonna make it rough and probably would have for most other teams, but those Bolts were so stacked

People had been half-jokingly saying “the real finals is the 2nd(Caps-Pens) round/ECF” for years before covid as the east had easily been deeper with teams built for playoffs for years


Even if you still somehow wanted to believe the Bolts runs weren’t legit, last years deep run with a depleted team should have dispelled that
 
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