Top Leafs need to be their best right now
Auston Matthews came up one goal short of 70. William Nylander came up two points shy of 100 one season after Mitch Marner finished with 99 points.
Individually, these are all remarkable numbers for the Maple Leafs’ high-priced stars. And yet, in each case, with personal circumstances quite different, each player came up short of making a new kind of symmetrical history when it was right there for them.
Which has been the unfortunate history of this team come playoff time. They have never missed the playoffs — not with Matthews, Marner and Nylander playing in blue and white — but have never really had a playoff run of any kind.
Will this year be different? It starts, as it does every year, with the Leafs’ Big Three.
There’s not necessarily a Core Four anymore, unless Morgan Rielly is the fourth member. Captain John Tavares is high-priced help and necessary, but not someone who can change games often anymore.
Matthews, Marner and Nylander, when healthy, can change games. But they haven’t done it often enough in the post-season. They haven’t done it enough when it mattered most. They haven’t done it together in tandem.
This is the time of year when a player can make a reputation for life. It’s happened in recent seasons with Nikita Kucherov in Tampa, with Nathan Mackinnon in Colorado, with Alex Ovechkin in Washington, with Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh. It happened with Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews in the big Blackhawks years.
They were the best being the best. It’s time for the best Leafs to be the best right now.
THIS AND THAT
There’s an understated pressure around the Leafs like nothing felt before. This is Brendan Shanahan’s 10th season as club president. He needs a playoff run. This is Sheldon Keefe’s fifth season as head coach. He needs a playoff run. This is Keith Pelley’s first weeks as CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. He wants a playoff run. And who knows how many years Larry Tanenbaum has left as chairman of the company and governor of the Leafs? He needs a playoff run, too … It won’t be an upset if the Leafs lose in the opening round to the Boston Bruins. Boston was ahead of them all season long. But what will matter is how they play, not just how many games they win … Tampa coach Jon Cooper on the back-to-back series against the Leafs the past two seasons: “They outplayed us and we won. We outplayed them and they won.” … Not sure there will be many firstround upsets in the Stanley Cup playoffs but if it’s considered an upset, I’ll take Colorado over Winnipeg. In the rest, I like the favourites.
Rangers over Washington; Florida over Tampa Bay; Boston over Toronto, probably seven games; Carolina over Islanders. The other West series: Dallas over Vegas; Edmonton over Los Angeles again; Vancouver over Nashville … Six years ago, Shanahan made a tough decision. He chose Kyle Dubas over sitting GM Lou Lamoriello. Since that time, Dubas, now the GM in Pittsburgh, has guided his team to 37 postseason games, all in Toronto. And since that time, Lamoriello has guided the Islanders to 55 playoff games, a number that could reach 60 by next week sometime. I wonder in retrospect if Shanahan would make the same decision again … Pittsburgh didn’t make the playoffs with Sidney Crosby having an absolutely brilliant season. How do they make it in the future when Crosby’s play eventually begins to decline? Next year is his 20th season.