Is there any reason to believe this season will be different for the Maple Leafs? (original) (raw)

Remember when the Maple Leafs were definitely — finally! — going to make major changes?

When team president Brendan Shanahan, who hung onto his job for an 11th consecutive season after Keith Pelley took over as MLSE president, sure made it seem like this was it, that, “We will look at everything this summer, and we will consider everything this summer.”

The Leafs had already fired Sheldon Keefe by that point in early May, less than a week after losing Game 7 in Boston. What Shanahan was hinting at was bigger, noting that “when you see patterns not change … where you change things around some of your core issues hoping that this year the results will be different and they don’t (change), that’s when you start having to reassess from a different lens.”

There were some tweaks around the edges: Craig Berube replaced Keefe, Auston Matthews and John Tavares traded letters, and the defence got beefier. But the big change, the one that would fundamentally remake the team, didn’t happen. The Leafs didn’t trade Mitch Marner or John Tavares or seem all that determined to try. And so, at the outset of the 2024-25 season, the Leafs are facing the same old question: Can this team win — and win a bunch — when it matters?

Craig Berube replaced Sheldon Keefe as coach. (R.J. Johnston / Toronto Star via Getty Images)

It will be chance No. 7 for the core five of Matthews, Tavares, Marner, Morgan Rielly and William Nylander.

Why would this season end any differently from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2024? What reason is there to believe this team can win four playoff series in a single spring and capture the Stanley Cup for the first time in 58 years when it has produced one total playoff series win in the last 20 years and one in a decade under Shanahan?

A different voice and perspective behind the bench would be one reason.

Keefe was a master of the regular season as Leafs coach, but that never did translate to the playoffs where again and again his teams struggled to score goals. Berube, on the other hand, led the St. Louis Blues to their first-ever Cup in his first season coaching there. Maybe he’ll be able to coax more out of this group in big moments (though this perception that he’ll be harder on players than Keefe overlooks how hard Keefe pushed players behind the scenes).

There’s also that defence, which got one major upgrade this summer in Chris Tanev, one maybe-sorta-kinda upgrade in Oliver Ekman-Larsson and one gigantic (literally) question mark in Jani Hakanpää. Tanev instantly becomes the best defensive defender the Leafs have had since Jake Muzzin, a partner for Rielly who has the chops to tackle top lines and lead a penalty kill. Ekman-Larsson brings the prospect of better puck movement to a back end that needs it and maybe, a shooting threat on PP1.

Hakanpää is a 6-foot-7 oak tree.

The forwards will be more or less the same. Max Pacioretty will try to resurrect his career in Toronto, Easton Cowan might buzz his way into the mix, PTO signee Steven Lorentz may push Ryan Reaves aside for fourth-line minutes, and Matthew Knies figures to take on a bigger role, but really, this is the same-ish bunch as last season, with the same questions.

Who lines up at centre after Matthews for one thing?

I’ll reiterate my belief that Nylander should finally get a lasting opportunity in the middle and I’ve got a hunch it finally happens this fall. Nylander becoming the 2C would allow Tavares to play fewer and easier minutes as the prospective third centre chasing a new contract in his age-34 season.

Can Berube build enough two-way potential across four lines?

Goaltending may be the biggest question of all. Anthony Stolarz has never started more than 24 games in an NHL regular season. Joseph Woll has started a total of 34 in his NHL career. The Woll-Stolarz combo might be better than the Woll-Samsonov combo — Samsonov was maybe the worst goalie in the league for a good chunk of last season — but who can say for sure?

The Leafs went Jacob Markstrom hunting in the offseason for a reason.

Then again, the Leafs had a team save percentage of just .893 last season. Anything above that would qualify as an improvement.

Can Woll stay healthy?

It’s tempting to think the goalies will have more help this season, that defensively this team will be harder to play against.

I’m a little skeptical as Tanev was the only major defensive addition, though a healthy Hakanpää certainly helps.

For this thing to work, the Leafs will need some combination of a long-awaited leap from Timothy Liljegren, another year like last year from Jake McCabe and Simon Benoit, and no meaningful decline from Ekman-Larsson in his 15th NHL season or Tanev, for that matter. He’ll turn 35 in December.

Chris Tanev instantly becomes the best defensive defender the Leafs have had since Jake Muzzin. (Sam Hodde / Getty Images)

The forward group is still lacking in quality defenders (and penalty killers).

Maybe Berube propels this group forward, with aid from new assistant coaches, Lane Lambert and Marc Savard. Then again, Keefe-led teams were fairly strong defensively in the regular season and the playoffs, for that matter, too.

This team will probably need to cut down on the goals against (second-worst among playoff teams last season) to make up for an offence that may not pump in the second-most goals in the league again (and then struggled to score in the postseason).

Matthews is unlikely to score 69 goals again and the Leafs ultimately replaced Tyler Bertuzzi, who trailed only the big four forwards with 21 in his one and only season in Toronto, with Pacioretty, once an elite scorer who’s nearly 36 and an injury question mark. There’s growth potential for Knies (15 last year), Bobby McMann (15), Nick Robertson (14), Marner (26 in 69) and maybe Cowan if he sticks.

And of course, Pacioretty — if he can stay healthy and rediscover his scoring pop.

That might be enough if the Leafs can make up for any offensive decline with even a mini leap defensively. Rank fifth in goals for, say, instead of second, but move up from 21st in goals against to 15th and maybe that strikes the right balance.

One obvious corner for improvement would be the penalty kill, which should stiffen because of Tanev and potentially, Hakanpää.

Part of me thinks this team will look a lot like the one from last year during the regular season. But part of me also can’t shake the fact that it took Matthews having one of the greatest seasons in the history of the NHL as well as a career year from Nylander to get there — third in the Atlantic with 102 points.

What if Matthews has only a normal-ish great season? What if the stars aren’t quite as healthy? Nylander played all 82 last year. Matthews played 81. Tavares suited up in all but two. Marner missed a little time (13 games) and so did Rielly (10), but that was it.

What if the goaltending is actually the same, or worse?

Is this team, as it stands now, better than Florida or Boston? Or a rejiggered Tampa squad?

As it stands now, are the Maple Leafs better than Florida or Boston? (Kevin Sousa / NHLI via Getty Images)

Of course, even winning the Presidents’ Trophy won’t matter one bit without a consequential postseason to back it up. And by consequential, we’re talking Eastern Conference final — at minimum.

No, that kind of run doesn’t feel likely for this particular group, but it’s not out of the question with the star power at the top of the roster — if those stars can summon their inner Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and perform like stars for weeks on end, not just a game or two here and there.

I’ve long assumed it would happen at some point. I’m less sure now.

Everything but a Cup is a failure at this point, but reaching the Eastern Conference final — and winning two playoff rounds — would at least qualify as progress — long overdue progress but progress no less. Advance that far and Shanahan probably will keep his job and the Leafs probably (depending on how the playoffs go for him) re-sign Marner, and Tavares too.

Anything short of that and real change might finally come for the Leafs. Not just talk.

(Top photo of Auston Matthews: Kevin Sousa / NHLI via Getty Images)

Jonas Siegel is a staff writer on the Maple Leafs for The Athletic. Jonas previously covered the Leafs for TSN and AM 640. He was also the national hockey writer for the Canadian Press. Follow Jonas on Twitter @jonassiegel