LEAFS LOSE TRAINING WHEELS
Expectations are high in Toronto, and how this team handles them remains to be seen
The way the last Stanley Cup that was won in these parts is sometimes talked about, you’d think Frank Mahovlich, Dave Keon and Johnny Bower took the Maple Leafs to the title right after they crawled out of the primordial ooze.
And it has been a long drought: 51 years and ticking. Still, that doesn’t quite explain the degree to which the failure narrative has been embraced in Toronto. It might have something to do with the fact the rest of the country has such a tremendous dislike for Toronto, what with all its sports teams and so much of the media based here and its stubborn refusal to treat the CFL like a real league.
The Leafs are like the New York Yankees in that regard, but pointedly lacking the recent playoff success. Everyone loves to tell Leafs fans how much their team stinks, and for much of the past five decades they have been quite right.
The locals knew it all too well during the futility of the Harold Ballard years, but even when that era mercifully closed, the team could not get the right combination of players to even make it as far as a Stanley Cup final. There have been some great players, and the team was guided at various points by Good Hockey Men, but none of that has worked out.
Eventually fatalism sets in. Back when the Leafs were owned by a large pension fund, a friend of mine believed the accountants in charge actively wanted the team to NOT win the Stanley Cup, because if they did it would be like the air popping out of a balloon. The emotional investment of millions of fans would be released, and eventually interest — and the money that flows from it — would wane. It was a dumb theory, but I guess it beat accepting that the team was trying to win and just wasn’t very good at it.
No one offers such theories any longer.
The Maple Leafs should be very good this year. They are actual Cup contenders, with no caveats attached.
It is the latest bewildering development in a series of them that have taken place since Brendan Shanahan arrived just four years ago. The hiring of Mike Babcock, the assembly of a smart front-office staff, the marvellously effective tank job, the canny use of the team’s financial resources and then the coup de grace last summer: the signing of John Tavares.
All of it has led to a mysterious feeling in these parts: belief.
The Leafs opened Maple Leaf Square, outside the freshly renamed Scotiabank Arena, on Wednesday night for the home opener, giving a playoff feeling to one of 82 games that is worth no more than the other 81.
Fans started flowing into the square as soon as the gates opened, the vast majority of them adorned in Leafs jerseys. There were the Gilmours and Clarks popping up amid the sea of Matthews and Marners and, now, Tavares. And some Nylanders, worn by those desperately hoping their jersey does not prove to have been a misguided investment.
There was an unmistakable vibe of giddiness in the air.
Inside the building, the mood was subdued for much of the night, until Auston Matthews scored his second of the night in overtime for a 3-2 win over the plucky Montreal Canadiens. Tavares scored, too.
The truth is, the poobahs at MLSE could open the big courtyard to fans for any of the Maple Leafs’ games this season, even a random Wednesday in February, and they would likely pack the joint. What remains to be seen, though, is what happens when the Maple Leafs have real expectations. The first-round playoff exits of the past two seasons have largely been received by the fan base as opportunities for growth, since the roster is so young that its key players are spectacularly bad at growing beards.
But the training wheels are off. Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are still young, but they are also proven NHL scorers. The same would be said of William Nylander should he and the team resolve their contract impasse. The goaltending is solid, the defence could be a little shaky, but the addition of Tavares gives the Leafs depth at forward unlike any Toronto team in recent memory. Or even in not-sorecent memory.
The Leafs aren’t a team, like they were even in their brief bursts of success in the Gilmour and Sundin years, that could contend if certain things broke their way. They know they are good. Matthews said Wednesday the team will take it one game at time, so he even has his boring hockey speak nailed.
The Leafs are scary good and they have a coach with championship experience and a team president who really seems to know what he’s doing. It still feels weird to be writing this about the Toronto Maple Leafs.
That doesn’t make it incorrect, just hard to accept. As the NHL pre-season rolled on, I was asked to make predictions in a couple of places. Doing some research, there were the Leafs, with the lowest Vegas odds of any team to win the Stanley Cup. The mind reels.
I couldn’t pick them. It still feels like betting on a unicorn.
Everyone loves to tell Leafs fans how much their team stinks, and for much of the past five decades they have been quite right.