‘Why not them?’
Babcock suggests door is open if ‘the moon and the stars’ line up for Leafs
The last time Eric Fehr played in an NHL playoff game he capped off the evening by hoisting the Stanley Cup. So he’s as good a Maple Leaf as any to ponder the question of the moment.
With the NHL season beginning Wednesday night, who, exactly, is the favourite to lift hockey’s hallowed chalice?
“The league is so tight and so close: There’s probably 15 teams right now that think they have a chance to win,” Fehr said.
Here’s the exciting thing for Toronto fans: For the first time in eons, the Leafs can say they’re one of those teams without even a hint of the usual local delusion.
It’s remarkable how the Leafs have so quickly morphed from perennial league punchline to gold-standard franchise. But a little more than a year after their draft-lottery win delivered Auston Matthews to the fold, Toronto finds itself in possession of the requisite doses of young star talent and organizational depth to be in the thick of the championship conversation. Heck, a season after the Nashville Predators became the first 16th seed in history to reach a Stanley Cup final, any team with playoff credentials is a championship contender by default.
Which is not to say somebody ought to be contacting Tim Leiweke to ask where he stashed the plans for his downtown parade route. Having a chance and seizing it are two entirely different things.
As Leafs coach Mike Babcock was telling folks this past summer at a charity golf tournament in New Brunswick: “You’ve got to line up the moon and the stars to win the Cup. You’ve got to have good talent, good coaching, good breaks with injuries and all those things.
“In saying that, if your team is good enough and you knock on the door, every once in a while they open the door for you.”
Babcock has used this knockingon-the-door image more than a few times before. It seems to be his way of explaining why, even though he’s the best-paid coach in the history of the sport, he owns precisely one Stanley Cup ring — a collection far smaller than the enormity of his self-assurance would suggest.
But such is the humbling reality of hockey’s harsh randomness. Steve Yzerman has been widely lauded for building a deep organization in Tampa Bay, where the Lightning are on many lists to win the East this season after missing the playoffs a season ago. Still, seven-plus years into Yzerman’s tenure as GM, the Lightning have collected zero Cups and one Cup final appearance. In four of Yzerman’s seven seasons at the helm, meanwhile, his team has either missed the playoffs or lost in the first round.
Fehr, who spent parts of 10 seasons in Washington during which time the Alex Ovechkin-led Capitals were a regular betting favourite, knows the feeling when a team’s overarching results don’t match its reputation.
“I’ve been on teams that have won the Presidents’ Trophy and were kicked out in the first round. It doesn’t matter how good your team is — you’re always beatable,” Fehr said.
Tell that to the Chicago Blackhawks. A decade into the Jonathan Toews-Patrick Kane era, they’ve won three Cups, to be sure. But they’ve also missed the playoffs or lost in the first round five times. Ditto the Penguins during the Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin era. They’ve won three Cups, too. But in five of their 12 seasons they’ve either missed the playoffs or been ousted in the opening round.
Which is only to prepare Toronto fans for what to expect in the era of Matthews et al. While there’s enough talent in town for a June parade, there’s also the chance of an April funeral procession. When you’re good enough to be in the Cup conversation, you’re also vulnerable to being talked about for less flattering reasons.
Still, it’s worth pausing to appreciate precisely what we’re talking about here. A year ago the Maple Leafs arrived in Ottawa for the opening of a season that came attached with non-existent expectations. A year later, anything less than a second-round trip into the postseason will be considered stalled progress come the spring of 2018. That’s a franchise on the fast track.
Not that newly-arrived Maple Leaf Patrick Marleau isn’t fully aware of how title potential can turn into missed opportunity. In nine of Marleau’s 19 seasons with San Jose, the Sharks either missed the playoffs or lost in the first round. Outside of one appearance in the Cup final, and three other trips to the conference final, those Sharks teams were mostly considered underachievers. They were also stocked with an abundance of talent that always suggested a ring was within reach.
“There’s no such thing as a guaranteed Cup . . . If you look at Pittsburgh, it’s probably the biggest favourite we’ve had in a long time. And lots had to go well for them to win,” Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen said this week. “That’s what we want to have here, to be in the conversation, to put ourselves in the situation to be one of those kinds of teams.”
The Leafs have already put themselves in that situation. Somewhere in the midst of last spring’s playoff run, Babcock said he figured he was helming the first of many postseason voyages to come.
“We plan to be doing this every year,” said the coach.
History suggests even the best teams need to do it every year — year after year — in the hope the moon and the stars eventually align. In other words, with the franchise’s big-picture problems mostly solved, it’s the smaller details that promise to loom large. Will Marleau actually fit? Will Andersen stay healthy? Will this team’s immense skill continued to be matched by its work ethic as its legend grows?
“It’s important for us not to get carried away by all the noise,” said Fehr.
Still, one steady beat in that cacophony figures to be the sound of the Leafs knocking on the door for seasons to come. That guarantees nothing, but it sure blows away grovelling in the basement.