TORONTO — Parsing through all the words spilled over the Toronto Maple Leafs this September, the consensus expectation is that they should be … pretty meh. Most analysts and fans assume they'll be “better” than last season — which was awful — but nobody I’ve seen has them pegged as much more than a playoff contender, or at best first-round fodder for a real Atlantic Division threat.
The Athletic uses Dom Luszczyszyn's model to project a more specific point total, and this year he’s got them at 93.4 points, which would be good for 17th in the NHL and just out of a playoff spot. In his model the “everything goes wrong” floor would be 78 points (which got them Gavin McKenna last year), while the “everything hits” ceiling is 108 points. It’s a big range.
So, let’s take a look at three potential outcomes for the Leafs this season, because it’s clear there are an uncommon amount of question marks. What does it look like if it goes great, awful, or something in between, and how would each scenario happen?
Let’s start at the top, and work our way on down.
Everything goes right: The Leafs push well over 100 points and compete to win the Atlantic
How: Auston Matthews is not only healthy, but the good vibes get rolling early. He puts up a good amount of points by the end of October, finds a groove, and it’s infectious. Matthews' game suits Jim Hiller’s system better than Craig Berube’s, they optimize his usage to get the most out of his offensive game (zone starts!), and he’s back to being a top-10 player in the league.
Matthews is also helped by Gavin McKenna who, despite his size, is just too skilled to not be valuable. He becomes a staple with Matthews, gets on PP1, and runs up 40-50 assists.
Meantime, Sergei Bobrovsky is driven to show he’s not done yet and has a “Marc-Andre Fleury in Vegas” year with Toronto. Darren Raddysh proves he isn’t a one-year wonder and scores 15-plus goals and 60-plus points on the top pair, while Chris Tanev is able to play more than 70 games as a valued shut-down-and-break-out veteran.
The bottom six bangs and chips in some goals, Matthews Knies takes a step, Easton Cowan proves to be a 50-point-plus spark plug, and a healthier Nick Paul has a bounce-back year. They can break the puck out with a revised defence corps, and the power play moves back into the top 10, maybe top five.
Hiller’s plans just work, and the team thrives. If it all hits, the Leafs are a division threat in February, and they add at the deadline.
I’m reminded of the expression my junior coach used to use: “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candies and nuts, every day would be Christmas.” That’s an awful lot of “ifs” and things going right, but “things go right” is one of Toronto's potential outcomes.
Everything goes wrong: The Leafs are a lottery team without a lottery pick
How: The opposite is true of Matthews. Despite early hopes, it becomes clear that physically he’s just not the guy he was in his mid-20s and won’t ever be that guy again. Instead, he’s now just shy of being a point-per-game level player who misses long stints with injuries, and just isn’t a player you can build a team around.
McKenna is just too slight to get where he needs to be offensively, and his defensive issues are glaring. Questions arise about whether the NHL is the right place for him to develop.
Bobrovsky looks like the guy he was last year, Raddysh banks his big-money deal to look like a second-pair ho-hum player, and none of the new bottom-six hodgepodge looks any different from the Leafs' previous lower-roster iterations.
Worst of all, Hiller doesn’t have any new ideas to throw at the wall when his early plans fall through.
By Christmas, the questions about what to do with Matthews — who surely won’t want to come back to a rebuilding team (that doesn’t have picks) — start to get louder. Do they trade him (and what’s even his value)? Do they trade all their older, talented players? What’s the point in keeping them?
Disaster looks like this: everyone in the Atlantic Division lives up to expectations, even the playoff-fringy teams like Ottawa, Detroit and Boston, while the Leafs are spinning their wheels.
Unlike last season, a 78-point pace doesn’t help Toronto with a draft pick since they've traded their own 2027 first away already. So, failing this season makes for a long, bleak second half.
Somewhere in between: The Leafs are a middle-of-the-pack team in the playoff hunt until the very end
How: This is our most likely outcome, where every game matters. With the many question marks this team has, they can’t all hit, and they won’t all miss.
Above, I lumped “the bottom six” all together, but these are individuals. Colton Sissons might be a good fit while Brandon Duhaime is not. Paul may work while Teddy Blueger fails. The opposite of those statements could happen too. But with all the darts they threw at the board with these bottom-six contracts, it’s likely there’s a real success or two, and a real disappointment or two.
Matthews doesn’t have to be a Hart Finalist or battle injuries and struggle, he could be a defensively solid, 80-point centre. Raddysh might be good without being great, and who can predict how many games Tanev can handle?
Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz could very well just be league average, and all this will lead to some wild ups and downs throughout the year, which could be based on randomness. They’ll lose four in a row, they’ll win four in a row, and you can take that to the bank.
What’s going to be really fascinating is how the Leafs start the season, because that will affect the tone of how we talk about the team. It will affect how they handle their roster throughout the year too, as they seem to have an eager GM when it comes to improving the depth chart, even in drastic ways.
It’s clear just how many questions there are about the Leafs — far more in volume than any season in recent memory. (Of all years for the league to shorten the pre-season, this was not the ideal one for Toronto.)
But, they do have eight of their first 12 games at home, and they barely play against their own division to start (three of the first 17 games), so they’ll have some opportunity to get things sorted out before the most meaningful games arrive.
My conservative (but somewhat positive) prediction for the Leafs: 95 points. Last year that total would’ve missed the playoffs by four points, the year prior it would’ve cleared the bar to get in by four. It’s the cop-out answer, but there are too many variables to go much bolder than that. The start of the season (and the vibes snowball effect) will be crucial. When you win, players are more likely to stick to their coach’s system, and when they do that it pushes further winning, and it all feeds itself. Lose and you get the opposite.
The only thing I know for sure is that the Maple Leafs are going to be fascinating to follow, whether they win, lose, or find themselves right in the middle of the draw.
