Thanks For Another Great Season

 

Photo From Editor in Leaf

Here we are again on the losing end of another game seven and as expected the fanbase are out in full force. I’m not going to break the game down we all watched we all know what went down. I am going to take time and give my thoughts on the season, we watched 89 games including playoffs of the best team to ever be iced for the Maple Leafs and unfortunately, it’s the two-time defending champions moving on to play Florida. Last night we watched the Leafs give a great effort only to fall short. That led to my phone blowing up with all kinds of comments from friends of mine and of course I was online looking for post game comments but in doing that I saw comments from fans that made me just shake my head.

Last night I had a friend tell me “You won’t win with a backup goalie”. First, to call Jack Campbell a backup goalie is a slap in his face but also here’s the thing at some point EVERY goalie is a backup. It’s up to them to take the job from the original starter. Here is an example Grant Fuhr in 1992 was Toronto’s number one goalie Grant although at one time was a great goalie in the league  with the Leafs his best days were well behind him, so management decided to give Felix Potvin an opportunity to take over, and he took the ball and ran with it leading Toronto too back-to-back Conference Finals. He went from being the backup goalie to Toronto’s number one. So, now let’s jump to when Kyle Dubas took over as GM. The Leafs had Freddie Andersen who as their starter did a great job, but Dubas went out and got Jack Campbell because Michael Hutchinson couldn’t do his part as the team’s backup. Now, we look at last season Freddie began the year as Toronto’s number one, but an injury meant Jack Campbell had an opportunity to show what he could do getting majority of the starts while Andersen was recovering. Campbell would then set a franchise record for wins to start a season. Fast forward to the end of the season and Campbell became the number one for Toronto heading into the post season because Andersen was still injured even though he was roller blading down the Lakeshore. Going into this season the question was can Jack Campbell cope with the workload that comes with being a starter? In my opinion he absolutely did, he posted a record of 31-9-6 in 47 starts, a season that saw him receive an All-Star honour and be in early Vezina conversations, then you look at these seven games he single handily kept the Leafs in game 5 after they fell down 2-0 only to come back and win that contest. I think anyone that points the finger at Jack Campbell for losing last nights game should really take time and study his play since coming to the Leafs because his numbers backup his performance and it shows he is capable of being a number one goalie in the National Hockey League.

Then I saw people saying fire Sheldon Keefe and Dubas. Why would you fire your GM and coach after a season that saw them finish 4^th in the entire league? This season Kyle Dubas addressed areas that needed fixing. He moved Ritchie for Lyubushkin, and he brought in a physicality that fans had been asking for. He added Giordano who brought a veteran presence on the blueline that helped everyone defensively. Looking at the forward group he added Michael Bunting for 2 years at 900K and Bunting is now up for Rookie of the year after putting up great numbers he signed David Kampf who fans questioned this signing, but they didn’t look at the important stat of him winning 60% of the faceoffs he takes. Every fan criticized the big four saying they weren’t performing when Matthews had a year that likely wins him the Hart Trophy, we saw Marner who last season was ripped to shreds for not scoring in the playoffs, he shut up the critics by collecting 97 points and then he added 8 points in these seven games. Nylander had a career year in goals and points this season and then in this series had 7 points in seven games. Lastly, if you have read enough of these articles this season you know my thoughts on the hate that Tavares got all season for his apparent lack of production.

I know seeing the team lose in round one again is frustrating and I get people want changes but when I ask them what changes do they make? The common answer I got last night, and this morning was “I don’t know”. The fans want changes, but they have no idea what they would change. Here is my answer to my own question to those who want changes. You don’t change anything you keep the core group together. Of course, Toronto has free agents that need new deals. Dubas will tinker with the lineup that’s obvious but as far as drastic changes I highly doubt that happens. I don’t think you see Wayne Simmonds return as much as I loved having him on the Leafs, I don’t think you see Kyle Clifford returns. As far as defence Sandin and Liljegren are restricted free agents in need of a new contract and Dubas honestly needs to decide to either give those two a legitimate opportunity on this club or move them to bring in some assets because both have shown they can perform at this level, but their talent is wasted if they are just going to be sitting in the press box as a healthy scratch. Ilya Lyubushkin and Mark Giordano need new contracts and personally I think you see Ilya get extended by Dubas and Giordano will come back to the Leafs if he is willing to take a low value contract, some have said Giordano could return on a 1-year league minimum deal.

The big question this summer will be can the Leafs and Campbell agree on a new deal? I personally think they will because he wants to stay here sure he wants fair value to him, but he also likely wants to keep the group together I can see Campbell taking less money to stay like what Rielly did in signing his new contract but of course there is always the possibility that he doesn’t sign a new offer in Toronto and looks elsewhere. If that were to happen, then I remind you of the potential trade that Elliott Friedman mentioned on deadline day that would see Nylander move to Anaheim and goalie John Gibson make his way to Toronto too take over in goal.

All in all, this season even though it ended in an all too familiar fashion I still say this season was a positive one because all year we saw a team respond when faced with adversity. We saw them having winning months for majority of the season and once again in this first round we saw our Leafs push the two-time defending champions to the limit and that is something to be proud of in this group. Sheldon Keefe said it best in his post game conference last night when he mentioned that in the handshake line that the team got a lot of respect from the opponent, but it isn’t the respect business it’s the winning business. Trust me when I tell you readers this Leaf team is very close to breaking through and when they do it will be well worth the wait, unfortunately this comes with the territory when a team is still learning how to get things done when it matters. Many teams have to go through it the Oilers did in the 80’s losing a hard fought series against the Islanders, Crosby and the Penguins went through it before finally beating Detroit in the finals rematch to win his first cup, Ovechkin waited eight years before finally getting by the Penguins and win his first cup, and lastly lets remember three years ago when everyone thought Tampa was the team to beat they ended up getting swept by Columbus. While everyone in the media and every fan thought they needed to blow the roster up and start over management decided to stay put. They chose to keep the group together and tinker here and there, but they stayed the course and stayed patient and that decision has clearly worked for them. I know Leaf fans want changes but if you can watch this team but can’t think of any solutions or changes then maybe remaining patient and trusting Kyle Dubas is the right decision because again this team is very close to having success.

 

I want to take the time to again give a massive thank you to everyone who followed this blog this season and last, I have had a lot of fun doing this. I by no means have ever said that I am an expert when it comes to hockey, I just give my opinion and try to use my handful of years as a coach to express my thoughts on the team and their performance. I of course received some backlash and got called many names for things I have said but that comes with the territory when you write about a team like the Leafs. At the end of the day, I thank everyone that has read this blog and support it. Also to the people that thought I was stupid or delusional for believing in this team and believing they can win that’s fine too because it tells me that even if that is  your opinion of me you’re still reading what I write so for that thank you because as long as people are clicking the links when I post them that means there is an audience and slowly and surely it will continue to grow.

I will likely be back with a quick article after the Leafs do their exit interviews, but I will possibly write about Canada at the Men’s World Championships that are currently going on, Canada is 2-0 after beating Germany yesterday and Italy this morning. I will also possibly write about Canada at the upcoming World Junior Championships in August and of course when the draft and free agency come around there will be articles.

 

Thanks for all the support and thanks as always for reading.