The great difficulty for the Toronto Maple Leafs, year after too many years, hasn’t just been about how each season ended, but also about how each season began.
This ever-changing version of the club — the one that starts with captain Auston Matthews, the pending free agent, Mitch Marner, and the television star, William Nylander — has never had a signature start to a new season.
The Leafs of Matthews, Marner and Nylander have never been in first place in the Atlantic Division of the National Hockey League on November 1.
Most years, they haven’t been close.
This is Season 9 for the kids who aren’t kids anymore. They have had their share of great personal numbers, end-of-season scoring totals, and rather rich paycheques, but what they have yet to master is a runaway start to the regular season.
That’s what new head coach Craig Berube is asking for. He wants to see the Leafs come out sprinting from the starting blocks instead of their usual early season jog.
Last year, the Leafs were six points behind Boston after a partial first month, sitting in fifth place in the division.
The year before that, they were eight points behind the Bruins, in seventh place in the NHL’s strongest division.
In other years, they have been eighth, sixth, fifth, fourth and once they were in second, five points behind Tampa Bay.
Why does the first month matter? Because the team that led the Atlantic Division on November 1st in every season but last year wound up in first place at the end of the season.
A brisk start matters to a hockey club looking to demonstrate a new side of itself in the early season under a general manager in his second season on the job and a coach working with the Leafs for the first time. The four most important factors:
THE TRELIVING FACTOR
GM Brad Treliving doesn’t just like size, he loves it. Since coming to Toronto, he has added a 6-foot-6 goaltender in Anthony Stolarz, a 6-foot-5 defenceman in Phillippe Myers, two 6-foot-4 competitors in Simon Benoit and Steven Lorentz, three 6-foot-2 difference makers in Chris Tanev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Max Pacioretty. There is no half court championship in the NHL but if there was, the Leafs would probably lead in rebounding.
Without a whole lot of cap flexibility, Treliving has altered his roster by 40 percent in one calendar year. Eight of 20 players who dressed on opening night last year are no longer with the team. This isn’t exactly his team, yet. But it’s a lot closer to his vision than the team he started with a year ago.
THE BERUBE FACTOR
Depending on who you talk to, Craig Berube is either a good, an average, or a great NHL coach. There is no consensus on all he brings to the club. What there is consensus about: He will be demanding and fair and at times brutally honest with his players. The Maple Leafs have been spoiled in the past. No one wanted to ruffle any feathers. Berube played only one way in his career, maximizing his toughness and below-average talent to fight his way through 17 seasons. He doesn’t expect his players, Ryan Reaves aside, to fight. But he expects them to want to fight for loose pucks, fight for inside position around the net, fight to stay on your line of choice.
Berube has a first line in Matthews, Marner, and Matthew Knies that seems set, and a fourth line of David Kampf centring Reaves and Steven Lorentz to do some dirty work. The middle lines are a work in progress, although Nylander’s immense skill puts him in the rare position to have high-end talent and play on a second line.
THE TANEV FACTOR
Chris Tanev was the signing of the off-season that mattered the most.
Not since Jake Muzzin was healthy have the Leafs had a defenceman anywhere close to what Tanev will bring to the club. And Muzzin’s game wasn’t as primarily defensive-based as Tanev’s happens to be. Assuming he stays healthy — which is an assumption open to discussion, considering Tanev’s history — he will bring the kind of quiet intelligence to the blueline the Leafs haven’t had since the days of Dmitri Yushkevich and Sylvain Lefebvre.
When he got to a very good team in Dallas last year at the trade deadline, the impressive Stars grew more impressive. They won 15 of their final 19 games with Tanev in the lineup and went on to play 19 playoff games.
The Leafs played seven playoff games last year, only more than seven in one of the past eight seasons.
Tanev should free up the highly skilled Morgan Rielly from some defensive responsibilities while adding to the Leafs penalty kill. Those who appreciate play without the puck will quickly become advocates of Tanev’s quiet and noisy game.
THE GOALIE SHUFFLE
Ilya Samsonov was the starting goaltender for the Maple Leafs on opening night last season, but the betting here is you don’t remember that Kevin Petruzzelli was the backup. Now it’s start over time with the injury-prone Joseph Woll starting the season and the statistically excellent Stolarz as his backup, and with depth behind those two with Matt Murray taking the role Martin Jones carried a year ago.
Woll, if healthy, should be an upgrade on Samsonov, who almost lost his career last season. Stolarz proved to be the perfect backup with the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. And Murray, after three seasons fighting injuries, is apparently healthy, happy and ready to resume being a goaltender of some quality.
This is a roster that could or should challenge for first place in the Atlantic. But you’ll know that in the next few weeks. If they’re not in or around first place in the division by the beginning of November, the odds of finishing that high, which would buy them some playoff freedom, will be significantly diminished.
x.com/simmonssteve