Finding the best Toronto Maple Leafs roster of the Auston Matthews era

If there has been a common thread throughout the majority of my articles, it is probably the concept of expectations and hope. I’ve written many, many words about my own personal hope and expectations for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I’ve written about how hope ebbs and flows throughout a season, how expectations have always been missed, and how difficult but necessary it is to keep coming back and believing. 

In this spirit, I thought we would dive straight into the deep end of missed expectations to try and determine which roster in the Matthews era was most likely to win the Stanley Cup. 

The options

I would argue there have been three elite Leafs rosters since Matthews was drafted: the 2021-22 team, the 2022-23 team, and the 2024-25 team. These players managed to achieve regular season point totals of 115, 111, and 108, respectively. 

In researching this piece, I started with the assumption that last season’s Leafs would probably be the most suited team. Whether this was recency bias or something else, I had the feeling that last year was the best version of the Leafs in the past decade. I don’t believe that is true anymore. 

My pick

Fundamentally, the decision around which team was truly the closest to a Stanley Cup Champion came down to what exactly was missing from each team, and if the 2021-22 Toronto Maple Leafs simply had average postseason goaltending, they could have won the Cup. 

The 2021-22 team was an offensive juggernaut. They scored 312 goals or 3.8 GF/60, second-most in the entire league. Their power play was automatic, boasting a league-best 27.3%. Auston Matthews had one of the greatest individual seasons in franchise history, scoring 60 goals and winning the Hart Trophy. 

Offensive juggernaut

What truly separated this roster from other Leaf rosters, and was the reason why this team was the closest to a legitimate Stanley Cup run, was the depth scoring. Michael Bunting (63 points), David Kämpf (32 points), Pierre Engvall (33 points), and Ilya Mikheyev (32 points) all contributed meaningfully, and no other Leafs roster has had four depth players over 30 points. 

The defence

The defence that year was far from elite, but was serviceable. They allowed 252 goals, or an xGA of 3.07, which ranked 14th in the NHL. However, their Corsi For percentage was 53.56% and they had an Expected Goals For of 53.3% demonstrating a systematic controlling of play. The Rielly and Brodie pairing was a legitimate top-pair with Morgan having a career offensive year and Brodie providing the defensive support. 

The Achilles heel

Goaltending is what sank this roster. Jack Campbell had a solid regular season with a .914 SV%, 2.64 GAA, and a 31—9—6 record. He was selected as an All-Star, although more for sheer volume of wins than particularly spectacular play. However, in the playoffs, he was completely exposed. Over seven games against Tampa Bay, he posted a devastating .897 SV% and a 3.15 GAA. In Game 4, he allowed five goals on 16 shots, fatally wounding Toronto’s Cup hopes. 

The 2022–23 season

The following season, Kyle Dubas identified the defence as the glaring weakness and made moves to improve it. To accomplish this, he brought in Luke Schenn, Jake McCabe, and retained Mark Giordano. The results spoke for themselves. The Leafs’ GAA dropped from 2.53/60 to 2.34. The team’s save percentage also jumped to .927 thanks to both better goaltending and improved shot suppression. Crucially, this defence held up in the playoffs. Against Florida’s elite offence in Round 2, they allowed just 2.45 goals per game over five games. That’s Cup-calibre defensive hockey against a team that would make the Stanley Cup Final.

However, the offence is what paid the price. Over the regular season, Goals For dropped from 312 to 279, or 3.8 GF/60 to 3.4. They still maintained an elite power play at 26% for fourth in the league. In the playoffs, though, the Achilles heel returned. Secondary scoring completely evaporated with the bottom six combining for just five total points over the 11 postseason games. 

Last year

Last season was more of the same. Under Berube’s new style, the Leafs played a defensively focused game with a GAA of 2.79/60. However, underlying metrics showed that it was likely more a result of elite goaltending than defensive excellence. 

A pattern

Every Leafs team over the past era has had weaknesses. For most of them, it’s been the same one. Offensive production dries up in the playoffs as the team is too reliant on top-six contributions, which are made more challenging in the tighter postseason style. The Leafs basically never have the forward depth to make up for this, and end up failing to outscore their defensive lapses. 

In 2021-22, this wasn’t the issue. They had the forward depth and a defence that was better than the numbers showed. In true Leafs fashion, though, they had to find another way to lose, and by God, they did. 

If only they got average goaltending, what could have been?