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2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

Maybe I'm alone on this, but I think Matthews's absence will help this squad gel. There have been way too many players taking a back seat so far this year. With Austin out, these guys MUST step it up and drive the bus for a while. They're either capable of doing so or they're not.

Either way, while Matthews is away we'll get a peak through the window of how far this squad can go when this team is fully healthy.

Time to find out what this core group is made of !
 
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Redleaf said:
Maybe I'm alone on this, but I think Matthews's absence will help this squad gel. There have been way too many players taking a back seat so far this year. With Auston out, these guys MUST step it up and drive the bus for a while. They're either capable of doing so or they're not.

Either way, while Matthews is away we'll get a peak through the window of how far this squad can go when this team is fully healthy.

Time to find out what this core group is made of !
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Kind of like when Sundin went down in that playoff run and Gary Roberts and Alyn McCauley went off. Just need Knies/McMann to go a bit unhinged, and Scott Laughton, when he returns, to start driving a fast checking/energy line to set the tone.
 
Just thinking about how fro 2019/20 to 2024-25, the Leafs had the 4th best record in the league. The three teams better were Colorado, Carolina and Boston. The next 5 teams were Vegas, Florida, Tampa, Edmonton and Dallas. All of these teams have been some of the most successful teams in the playoffs. So what’s the difference, why are the Leafs the outlier here? It seems logical that the best predictor for playoff success would be strong regular season success. And it has been for literally every single other team with similar regular season success.
 
GhostofPotvin29 said:
Just thinking about how fro 2019/20 to 2024-25, the Leafs had the 4th best record in the league. The three teams better were Colorado, Carolina and Boston. The next 5 teams were Vegas, Florida, Tampa, Edmonton and Dallas. All of these teams have been some of the most successful teams in the playoffs. So what’s the difference, why are the Leafs the outlier here? It seems logical that the best predictor for playoff success would be strong regular season success. And it has been for literally every single other team with similar regular season success.
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I would say it's a combination of the Atlantic division hurdle, and the playstyle that regular season success was built on. The Leafs have a similar make up, but those other teams on the list are up-tempo and play through obstacles, rather than play around them. Toronto also arguably has one of the weaker two-way defense groups in that time span.
 
herman said:
I would say it's a combination of the Atlantic division hurdle, and the playstyle that regular season success was built on. The Leafs have a similar make up, but those other teams on the list are up-tempo and play through obstacles, rather than play around them. Toronto also arguably has one of the weaker two-way defense groups in that time span.
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After seeing a defence with Cody Ceci and Darnell Nurse make it to Game 7 of the Cup Finals, I no longer accept the defensive group arguments ;)
 
GhostofPotvin29 said:
Just thinking about how fro 2019/20 to 2024-25, the Leafs had the 4th best record in the league. The three teams better were Colorado, Carolina and Boston. The next 5 teams were Vegas, Florida, Tampa, Edmonton and Dallas. All of these teams have been some of the most successful teams in the playoffs. So what’s the difference, why are the Leafs the outlier here? It seems logical that the best predictor for playoff success would be strong regular season success. And it has been for literally every single other team with similar regular season success.
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I believe the current playoff system obscures things a bit. I'm not sure how successful I think Carolina has been, they are 1-12 in the conference finals (against Atlantic division teams). Like Herman said, there's been an Atlantic division hurdle.
 
herman said:
McDrai going off on the PP covers a lot of ills. Leafs special teams in the playoffs are a special type of disaster.
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Which is why to me this whole era’s failures can be summed up by the stars not being stars in the playoffs the same way as stars in other teams routinely are. And tbh I cannot blame management for believing that they would break through, since I have a hard time thinking of other stars who haven’t eventually stepped up in the playoffs.
 
GhostofPotvin29 said:
Which is why to me this whole era’s failures can be summed up by the stars not being stars in the playoffs the same way as stars in other teams routinely are. And tbh I cannot blame management for believing that they would break through, since I have a hard time thinking of other stars who haven’t eventually stepped up in the playoffs.
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Which leads me to my conclusion that these stars were cultivated in an environment/playstyle that fostered the type of play that doesn't break through. Their top two stars at the time were overplayed during the regular season (seemingly for vanity, in my opinion) and they defaulted to safe and conservative Phillip Danault hockey but ate up 24M of scoring potential and sucked up a lot of opportunity for depth contributors to get reps.
 
herman said:
Which leads me to my conclusion that these stars were cultivated in an environment/playstyle that fostered the type of play that doesn't break through. Their top two stars at the time were overplayed during the regular season (seemingly for vanity, in my opinion) and they defaulted to safe and conservative Phillip Danault hockey but ate up 24M of scoring potential and sucked up a lot of opportunity for depth contributors to get reps.
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When MacKinnon plays that much is it for vanity? When McDrai do? Rantanen? Etc. All of these players have played similar or more ice time per game to the Leafs stars and they came through in the playoffs.

Cultivated in an environment that fostered a environment/playstyle that doesn’t break through? What does that mean? I don’t see how their environment was markedly different from any number of other successful teams.
 
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