Early Season Look-In: Pressure Mounts For Leafs After Another Playoff Disappointment
We’re now in the sixth year of the Auston Matthews era and the Leafs haven’t made it out of the first round.
The young Leafs surprised in 2016-17 during Matthews’ rookie year and squeezed into the playoffs before losing to the top-seeded Washington Capitals. They then lost to the Boston Bruins in back-to-back years, including blowing a 3-2 series lead in the latter. The 2020 playoff bubble featured a loss to the underwhelming Columbus Blue Jackets. There’s a lot of heartbreak here, but 2021 was the worst of them all.
Toronto was far and away the top team in the Canadian Division but the Leafs wound up blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Montreal Canadiens, a classic rival they were supposed to easily push aside en route to a deep run.
It doesn’t matter what the Toronto Maple Leafs do during the regular season — they need to do something in the playoffs come spring.
What to expect in 2021-22…
The Leafs could win the Presidents’ Trophy or squeeze into the playoffs with nearly as many losses as they have wins. All that matters is this team finds a way to get out of the first round for the first time since the implementation of the salary cap.
So far, this team has given fans more reasons to worry than reasons to be optimistic.
Through four games, the Leafs own a 2-1-1 record. They won their first game of the season against the Habs, split a pair of games in regulation against the Ottawa Senators, and, most recently, they got dropped in overtime by the New York Rangers.
The Leafs have received excellent goaltending from Jack Campbell thus far. But the offense that’s expected to be one of the league’s best hasn’t clicked yet. Part of that is because Matthews, last year’s Rocket Richard Trophy winner, missed the first three games of the season due to offseason wrist surgery, but the real issue is the play of two of Toronto’s other expensive forwards.
Neither John Tavares nor Mitch Marner has a goal yet this season and the duo has combined for just three points. Nobody is going to score in all 82 games, but expectations are justifiably very, very high when you’re getting paid more than $10 million per season
The pressure is on Marner in particular after a long, ugly, public contract holdout that ultimately resulted in him getting a $10,903,000 annual salary. Marner was excellent in 2021, scoring 67 points in 55 games, but he completely disappeared in the playoffs, scoring zero goals and four points over seven games. Marner’s last playoff goal came in Game 1 against the Bruins in 2019.
Again, now that Matthews is back, the Leafs’ offense will surely start rolling again, but Tavares and Marner need to start putting pucks in the net.
Players to watch…
One of the biggest bright spots on the Leafs thus far has been the play of bargain-bin offseason addition, Michael Bunting.
A fourth-round pick from the 2014 draft, Bunting put up good numbers for the Arizona Coyotes for years in the AHL but was hardly given a chance at the NHL level. In 21 games for the Coyotes in 2021, Bunting scored 10 goals, which was enough to warrant the Leafs giving him a two-year deal in free agency.
Bunting has been given prime minutes on the Leafs, filling the role in the team’s top-six that had been previously occupied by Zach Hyman. The hope for the Leafs is that Bunting can follow in the footsteps of Hyman, a former mid-round pick who developed into a very good complimentary winger.
So far, so good. Through four games, Bunting has two goals and three points and doesn’t look at all out of place playing with the Leafs’ top guns. This is the value the Leafs need to find from cheap players given their expensive core.
Other players to watch for different reasons are Jack Cambell and Morgan Rielly, a pair of impending free agents who could price themselves out of Toronto if they have strong seasons.
Rielly has three points in four games thus far and, given the way defenders are being paid around the league, a big season could net him a bag of cash worth north of $8 million annually. Campbell has a .953 save percentage in three starts and will soon be looking for a big raise on his $1.65 million annual salary.
What they did in the offseason…
Notable Additions: Petr Mrazek, Michael Bunting, Ondrej Kase, David Kampf, Nick Ritchie Michael Amadio.
Notable Subtractions: Frederik Andersen, Zach Hyman, Nick Foligno, Joe Thornton, Alex Galchenyuk, Travis Boyd, Zach Bogosian, David Rittich.
The devastating, embarrassing loss to the Habs had many calling for the Leafs to pull the trigger on a big deal to shake up the team. Despite that, Kyle Dubas stuck to his guns and brought back the team’s core for another go.
Dubas’ offseason was yet another summer spent dancing around a tight salary cap situation, finding players in the bargain-bin who can contribute on cheap contracts.
Zach Hyman and Frederik Andersen, a pair of key players over the past few years, moved on in free agency. Hyman earned a big contract with the Edmonton Oilers while Andersen joined the Carolina Hurricanes as a reclamation project. Along with them, veterans Joe Thornton, Nick Foligno, and Zach Bogosian moved on to different teams.
The Leafs replaced Andersen by bringing in Petr Mrazek, essentially making this a goalie-for-goalie swap with Carolina. There wasn’t enough cap room to make a splash to replace Hyman, so the goal is for a cheap addition like Michael Bunting, Ondrej Kase, or Nick Ritchie to come in and replace his production.
While salary cap struggles are nothing new in Leaf Land, things are going to get even more difficult next summer. As I mentioned above, two more important players, Morgan Rielly and Jack Campbell are set to hit the open market at the end of the season, and Rasmus Sandin, a former first-round pick who’s finally coming into his own, will see his entry-level deal expire.
The Leafs already have about $68 million committed to seven forwards, four defenders, and one goalie. That leaves them with around $14 million to figure out new deals for Campbell, Rielly, and Sandin, along with fleshing out the rest of their roster.
You can see now why going on a playoff run this spring is so important.
One bold prediction…
This prediction won’t come into fruition during the regular season, but Mitch Marner will wind up being the member of the Big Four moved to help address Toronto’s cap situation next summer.
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