The Toronto Maple Leafs are 9–10–3 to start the year, which is good enough for 28th in the entire league. This is not the start the Leafs wanted, or even imagined, for the year. While it looked like the Leafs were starting to put it together, last week was still a disappointment.
This is the 10th year in the Matthews era, and the team has only two second-round appearances. At this point, is enough enough? Should the Leafs consider a rebuild? Let’s take a look.
Retool or rebuild?
We have looked at what’s wrong with the Leafs this year and have commented on it ad nauseam. But to be honest, this season is not really an outlier in terms of what is wrong with this team. What we are seeing with the Leafs so far this season is how we see the Leafs play in the playoffs. Outside of a handful of playoff games, the Leafs have largely played uninspired hockey, where the superstars don’t show up when it counts.
The only difference is that the uninspired playoff hockey is happening before the playoffs this season.
The players are playing like head coach Craig Berube has lost the room. Usually, this means that the coach is on the hot seat and will usually be fired if things don’t improve. However, this isn’t the first time this core group of players have tuned out their head coach. There was Mike Babcock, followed by Sheldon Keefe. At some point, while the players are good individually, they just can’t get it done as a group.
So this leads to the obvious question: “Why don’t the Leafs simply retool instead of a rebuild?” At face value, this makes sense. The Leafs have William Nylander locked up for another six years after this year, and captain Auston Matthews for another two. Matthew Knies is turning into a star before our eyes, and Easton Cowan has top-six potential. A retool would make much more sense than a scorched-earth rebuild.
No draft picks, no prospects, no assets
There’s just one problem: the Leafs don’t have a first-round pick until 2028. Outside of Cowan and maybe Ben Danford, the Leafs have no solid prospects. I don’t just mean blue-chip prospects (e.g., Mitch Marner or Nylander); they certainly don’t have any of those. But even players who have second or third line potential.
The Leafs have used all their assets for bottom-six forwards or defenders over the years. I am not going to lament trades that should or should not have happened, but the Leafs went all-in on the “Core Four” and lost the house.
Rather than trade Marner or a Nylander before their no-trade clauses kicked in, management decided they wanted even more. To make matters even worse, Nylander, Matthews and even Morgan Rielly were given no-movement clauses. This makes trading them nearly impossible.
So the Leafs are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The team clearly doesn’t want to play how Berube wants them to, despite taking steps last year. The Leafs have few assets to either make the team better, nor can they trade many players with value to recoup prospects or draft capital. It’s truly an abysmal situation.
What will Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment do?
Given MLSE raised ticket prices ahead of this season, in some cases by 20%, I think we know the answer. They plan on milking this current core until they can no longer do so. It’s painfully obvious that the Leafs need to take the scorched-earth approach and rebuild. Whether it’s team culture, not the right leaders on the team, not the right type of superstars, the right coach, or a combination thereof, seismic changes need to happen. However, money never sleeps.
We can clearly see that MLSE does not have a keen eye for a championship when it comes to the Leafs. The Toronto Blue Jays and the Toronto Raptors are clearly MLSE’s favourites, and then there is the Toronto Maple Leafs: the abysmal failure.
Say what you want about Kyle Dubas, but after the spanking by the Florida Panthers in the 2022–23 playoffs, he hinted that he was going to shake up the core. Whether that was Marner, Nylander, or both, given their no-trade clauses didn’t kick in yet, who knows. Even though the time to retool should have happened post-Montreal or post-Columbus series, this was the literal point of no return.
But Brendan Shanahan let Dubas go, and the Core Four remained intact. Shanahan allegedly went further and called the Leafs’ superstars and said they are staying after Dubas made those comments. Whether Shanahan truly believed in this core, which I find hard to believe given how he played the game himself, or if he was ordered by MLSE to keep the core together, we may never know.
It is hard not to look at how other franchises operate and then compare them to the mess in Toronto. If the Leafs keep playing how they’re playing, they are going to hit rock bottom. Yes, Gavin McKenna is the ultimate prize in this year’s race to the bottom. But let’s say the Leafs don’t finish within the top five of this year’s draft. What’s the solution then?
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