Maple Leafs aren’t out of it, but the path to getting back in it will be difficult

Things look pretty bad for the Toronto Maple Leafs right now. A losing record at the quarter mark. None of the new players have done much more than provide fresh targets for scorn. And while at present time the Maple Leafs are sitting in a position where they might get use their top five pick protected first round selection in this draft after all (not a bad outcome at all), the Maple Leafs are also only four points back of the final lottery team in the East at the moment, and throwing in the towel is premature.

From a pessimist’s perspective, there are reasons to believe that Leafs will improve. Auston Matthews, Chris Tanev, and Anthony Stolarz will eventually return to the club and whether you’ve been enamoured with Scott Laughton or Brandon Carlo or not, the upgrade over Sammy Blais and Dakota Mermis shouldn’t be debatable either. From a health standpoint, good players are coming, but that doesn’t mean who is in the lineup right now will be healthy.

There is also reason to believe that Easton Cowan will get more comfortable in the NHL, there is a likelihood that players like Dakota Joshua, Nicolas Roy, Troy Stecher, Matias Maccelli, and the previously mentioned Carlo and Laughton will adapt to what Craig Berube is coaching. The Leafs very well could improve, though the same can be said for every other team in the NHL too. As I write this, the Sabres are the only team the Leafs don’t need to pass to fight their way into one of the Atlantic Division playoff spots and presently teams like the Rangers, Capitals, Senators, Panthers, and Lightning are the other teams completely out of a playoff spot. That’s not an easy group to work your way past. Some of these streaking teams will falter but the Leafs are also facing a much tougher schedule in the remaining 61 games, including the fact that the majority (36) of those games will be played on the road where the Leafs have a 1-5-0 record so far.

The Leafs are in the negative on every shot differential measurement at this point. They have the second worst goal differential in their conference. They have the worst goal against in their conference, and their special teams are near the bottom of the league as well. It seems like the Leafs are asking for prime versions of Auston Matthews, Chris Tanev, and Anthony Stolarz to be returning to the lineup, not the current iterations that we’ve seen so far this season.

It’s great that Brad Treliving has taken responsibility for the current state of the Leafs. It’s his team now and while some people might not like the condition that Kyle Dubas left the franchise in, trading 1st round picks plus quality prospects for Brandon Carlo and Scott Laughton was Treliving’s situation. Replacing Mitch Marner with Roy, Joshua, and Maccelli is on him as well. And it wasn’t Kyle Dubas that gave Max Domi a multi-year contract.

Treliving’s vote of confidence for Craig Berube is as damning as it is supportive given that you only need to say you believe in a coach when they are significantly underachieving. For Treliving’s faults in his roster decisions, he certainly has prioritized the archetype of players that Craig Berube wants to work with. He’s given him a team to play hockey his way, it’s just that way isn’t particularly successful.

Berube is a motivator, not a diehard x’s and o’s strategist, and the team looking unmotivated to go along with their unstructured play is something that he should be wearing just as much as Brad Treliving.

All of this comes in a year where MLSE CEO Keith Pelley has made grandiose expectations for what the team should be achieving or on the path to achieving. Treliving and Berube having their team start slow out of the gate might be tolerated in the first quarter of the season, but given that the club’s publicly asserted direction is to be one of the best contenders for the Stanley Cup, being outside the playoff picture in 21 more games might mean that it will be Pelley delivering the next quarterly progress report.

While it might be too early to count the Leafs out as a playoff team and who knows what can happen in the playoffs, if they get there, but no matter what it’s hard to envision a regular season that lives up to expectations and even if changes are unlikely in season, perhaps he’s ready to move on from the best GM available at the time who wasn’t Kyle Dubas and the best coach available at the time who wasn’t Sheldon Keefe and put the Leafs on a proper path forward instead of spending the rest of the Auston Matthews era treading water.