Back in 2016, if you told Leafs fans that the team would not have even come close to sniffing an Eastern Conference Finals appearance, they probably would laugh in your face. Yet, here we are with two first-round victories in 10 years.
During the game against the Colorado Avalanche, an injured Toronto Maple Leafs superstar, William Nylander, flipped off the camera that panned to the press box. Nylander said it was a sign of frustration. Afterall, the Leafs were losing 3–0 at the time. But even still, the league decided to fine Nylander $5,000, the maximum amount under the CBA.
It’s rare for a Leafs player to show such raw emotion in the Matthews era. The identity around this team for the last decade has been that they don’t hate to lose more than they love to win. Unfortunately, part of the problem is the culture MLSE has fostered and developed over the last decade.
In this article, let’s take a look at the “culture” in Toronto, and what MLSE and general manager Brad Treliving need to do to fix it.
A culture of blunted emotions
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in year 10 in the Auston Matthews era. By now, the Leafs should be perennial Stanley Cup contenders. Instead, they sit six points out of a Wild Card spot at 52 games played. Perhaps even worse, during an era where we have witnessed the most skilled teams in franchise history, these teams only had two first-round playoff wins.
After every soul-crushing defeat, we would hear from this team’s leadership. Before it was captain John Tavares and “the lessons” the team learned that he would describe in a monotone voice. It was superstars Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander saying something along the lines of “we need to be better”. Yet, nothing ever changed. Not the on-ice performance, nor the on-ice accountability.
In the current era, captain Matthews seems no better than his predecessor. I will give Matthews credit; he was sassy in the pregame interview with Mark Masters before the Vegas Golden Knights game two weeks ago. But by and large, this team is devoid of any raw emotions that many Leafs fans remember in previous iterations, like the Mats Sundin or the Doug Gilmour era.
This goes beyond just the Leafs. The Leafs are not the only NHL franchise that suffers from this culture. The NHL seems scared of players showing their personalities. When we look at other professional leagues like the NBA, NFL, or MLB, the players are these larger-than-life characters. The players are what sell the tickets and, more importantly, what creates new fans.
But for the Leafs, MLSE has taken an already personality-less sport and completely sanitized it of all human emotions. Why? MLSE fears taking risks that can jeopardize their bottom line.
A culture of risk aversion and profits
Like any good corporation, MLSE has optimized everything for maximum profits at the expense of the fans and the on-ice product. The Leafs consistently have the highest ticket prices by a wide margin, and spend little on fan engagement. People constantly complain that the arena sounds like a morgue and “suits” fill the arena. To keep the status quo, MLSE wants to control every aspect of the team. MLSE wants to control the narrative around injuries. They want to control what players can say. They want to corporatize the team.
Before Kyle Dubas was fired in 2023, he hinted in his end of season presser that he was going to shake the ”Core Four”. Then president Brendan Shanahan fired him. After seeing how the team performed the seven years prior, was keeping the band together the right move?
Of course not.
Likely, the reason why they were kept together was that the names on the back of the jerseys made MLSE money. Of course, we will never know. But the Leafs are consistently ranked as one of the NHL’s richest franchises. It’s not a stretch of the imagination that they would milk the players for all their worth.
The Leafs were built upon multiple generations of fans. Unlike a new franchise, they don’t need to have these “fan engagement nights”. They can keep concessions astronomically high because they know fans will pay for them. However, there is a problem. In order for this gravy train to keep chugging along, new fans need to be ushered in.
Success breeds new fandom
MLSE is on a current trajectory, whether they see it or not. Either the games will become so prohibitively expensive that fans will turn to other local sports teams, or the decades of poor on-ice products will catch up. The Leafs’ greatest run since winning the 1967 Stanley Cup was the 1993 playoff series, where the Leafs were one win away from making the finals.
That team had heart and passion, and it ushered in generations of new fans. The Mats Sundin era was defined by two Eastern Conference Final appearances. While not as close as the 1993 series, these teams also had heart and passion, and ushered in new fans.
Despite not being successful (the Leafs haven’t made the finals since 1967), the teams found ways to excite the old fans and bring in new fans. Part of the reason why these previous eras brought in new fans was that the players played with emotion. They showed it on and off the ice. Nothing is exciting about this overly sanitized era. In fact, over the course of the current iteration, attendance has declined.
This is why MLSE should be concerned with success. If the Leafs make the Stanley Cup Finals once in this era, that hypothetical Leafs team will be immortalized in Toronto forever. What’s crazy is that they don’t even have to win!
After witnessing the 2019 Toronto Raptors’ NBA Finals win and the recent World Series run by the Toronto Blue Jays, MLSE should be trying to re-create this magic for the Leafs.
But how?
MLSE needs to exert its might
Simply put, MLSE needs to exert its might, and I don’t mean financially. They’ve handed out some of the richest contracts in NHL history, and that has gotten them two first-round wins. They need to start exerting their might as one of the richest and most profitable NHL franchises.
The Leafs need to start acting like the Vegas Golden Knights in terms of adding winners and subtracting the “dead weight” year after year. The Leafs need to start acting like Tampa Bay and the Florida Panthers with their LTIR shenanigans. Unfortunately, many of these loopholes were closed starting this year. But the point is that these teams use every “legal” edge they can find to better their respective teams.
MLSE could also start calling out the league for the seemingly double standard. What about Bennett injuring Anthony Stolarz last playoffs? How about the Leafs being the most suspended team since George Parros took over the Department of Player Safety? What about the Leafs being one of the teams that consistently receive the least amount of power play opportunities in the last decade?
Even with the latest example of Nylander flipping the camera off, MLSE should be pointing to the Andrew Ference incident in 2011. Ference flipped off the entire crowd during a goal celebration and was fined $2,500. I would argue that the Ference incident is more egregious, yet Nylander was fined twice the amount.
It’s less about MLSE getting suspensions reversed or fines reduced, and more about demonstrating a culture of having your players’ backs. As a coach for the Leafs, where is the incentive to call out the poor officiating? If you’re a player for the Leafs, where is the incentive to show emotions?
MLSE needs to build a winning culture by retooling
In addition to throwing their weight around, MLSE needs to start focusing on winning like the Vegas Golden Knights, Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers. MLSE needs to shift their mindset from a short-term focus to a long-term one.
When the Leafs moved off from Mitch Marner last offseason, there were rumours that the Leafs would accuse the Golden Knights of tampering. This resulted in the Leafs receiving Nicholas Roy in return for the sign-and-trade. Finally, the Leafs were going to move on from a failed era and have a rebirth: be a team that throws its weight around and start building a winning culture.
However, this was the extent of their “rebirth”. Now, general manager Brad Treliving has to make a decision. Either make trades to improve the team so they can make the playoffs. However, the Leafs have very few assets to improve the team at this trade deadline.
Or, make the bold move to sell off assets and retool for next year. This includes selling high on their assets at their peak value, like Nicholas Robertson, Easton Cowan, Scott Laughton, Bobby McMann, or Oliver Ekman-Larsson. This also includes getting players back who emulate the culture and values you want every player on your hockey team to have. If a player doesn’t want to be a Maple Leaf, then they’re gone.
It’s easier said than done. Other players like Morgan Rielly have full no-move clauses. But you can apply pressure and make life uncomfortable, so they want to be traded. It’s not pretty. But it is better than hobbling into the playoffs and getting knocked out in the first round.
The Leafs have a few good years left of the Matthews era. It’s time for MLSE and, by extension, Brad Treliving, to make the cultural changes by retooling this year. Doing so does not guarantee winning. But as we’ve seen in the last decade, hope is not a strategy. Otherwise, they risk fading into irrelevancy in the long term.
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