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Leafs never on the verge of winning anything in Brendan Shanahan years
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# SIMMONS: Leafs never have been on verge of winning anything during
the Brendan Shanahan years
We are long past the point of patience with Leafs' playoff
shortcomings
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Published May 07, 2024 • Last updated May 07, 2024 • 6 minute read
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Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan. Getty Images
## Article content
Brendan Shanahan was on his fourth team and in his 10th National
Hockey League season when he lifted the Stanley Cup for the very first
time.
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He won his second Cup in his 11th season, his third and final
championship of a Hall of Fame playing career in his 15th year.
Article content
If anyone understands the virtue of patience in waiting for victory —
and giving teams and players time to find their way — it is Shanahan.
The team he talked about building in Toronto, especially in his
earlier years, was a team that he envisioned would contend during the
season and be one of six or eight teams every spring to battle for the
Stanley Cup.
His regular-season record, like those who play for him now, is
impressive. His playoff record is nothing like what he had in mind for
this apparently overly talented group.
He won his first Cup in his 10th season in the NHL, his first year
with the Detroit Red Wings. His 10th season with the Maple Leafs
concluded Saturday night in Boston. Another year of hope dashed in
overtime, over before it had any real chance to succeed.
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The sad reality over time is that the team Shanahan hoped to build,
the one he envisioned, never has been a Stanley Cup contender. They've
never been a factor beyond the first round of the playoffs. They've
never looked, acted like or performed like, a team on the verge of
winning anything.
So the narrative now has changed, even if Shanahan's words have not.
This was supposed to be a team that could win the Cup or certainly
challenge for it. Over time, though, it's morphed into a team — with
his top players the same for the past eight seasons — that fights to
try and get out of the first round of the playoffs.
The Leafs are not a Cup contender. They're a contender to win the
first round of the playoffs — and they're 1-for-8 doing that in
Shanahan's time in Toronto.
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The Leafs have been in the playoffs eight straight years under
Shanahan and have been defeated eight straight years, seven of them
coming in the first round. Those eight elimination games that ended
series, not unlike the defeat to the Bruins on Saturday night, were
similar in one way.
The Leafs managed just 11 goals in the eight games that would have
pushed them to the next round of the playoffs. Eleven goals for a team
that has Auston Matthews, the leading goal scorer in the NHL from the
day he arrived in the league. Eleven goals for a team with Mitch
Marner, a top-10 point-getter from the day he began playing in
Toronto.
Of those eleven goals, two were scored by Patrick Marleau, which puts
him one goal ahead of Matthews, two ahead of the God-like Marner — who
hasn't scored in a clinching game — and one behind William Nylander,
who has been productive most playoff years.
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It wasn't only that the team didn't score in those games lost. They
got shut out by Columbus. They were held to one goal by a Montreal
team that finished 18 points behind the Leafs in a shortened season,
blowing their own 3-1 lead in the series. Those were teams the Leafs
were supposed to handle.
The fact the Leafs battled back against Boston after trailing 3-1 in
the series and played sharp enough defence to allow only three goals
against in the final three games in regulation time in the series
tells you something about the growing mettle this time around: Just
not about their ability to make a big play when the lights are the
brightest.
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The team, as constructed by Shanahan, Lou Lamoriello, Kyle Dubas and
now Brad Treliving, isn't good enough and hasn't been good enough at
playoff time. That was obvious before this year. Certainly obvious now
in reflection of another season gone by.
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The challenge, though, is what to do to fix the problem. Does that
start with replacing Shanahan or him presenting a plan of consequence
to new MLSE CEO Keith Pelley. However it is sold, the execution of
whatever might come next is significantly hampered by the current
Leafs contracts and salary-cap limitations.
Matthews and Nylander, clearly the two best Leafs players, are signed
long-term here for big money. That isn't going to change. They're not
going anywhere.
Mitch Marner and captain John Tavares, two expensive pieces at a
combined price of $22 million, enter the final year of their deals.
Both have no-movement clauses in their overpaid contracts. Almost
certainly, no matter who is in charge of the team, both players, will
be asked — pushed, maybe — to see if they are willing to waive those
arrangements.
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And the odds are both will say no.
And the real trouble is no one would want Tavares at his current
salary level and he would bring next to nothing in a deal.
Marner might bring some value if he agreed to a trade, but it would be
limited compared to his worth because there is just one year left on
his contract.
Which means, in essence, the Leafs are stuck with Marner and Tavares
and the $22 million attached to them for another year, unless they an
pull some kind of rabbit out of a hockey hat here.
Having Matthews, Nylander, Marner, Tavares and defenceman Morgan
Rielly all signed through next season means the Leafs are hamstrung
once again by their own over-exuberance in previous negotiations.
The team needs help in many areas, starting with a puck-moving
defenceman or two, with a point man who can shoot the puck, with a
third-line centre, with better goaltenders or those who can stay
healthy, with more grit, always grit, and has almost no money to try
and find that within the off-season.
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A year from now, with Marner and Tavares' contracts expiring, there is
some daylight for a general manager in which to operate. The fans
fancy — that Marner will waive his no-trade deal and be dealt for any
number of great young players in hockey, as are rumoured online — is
mostly fantasy. And if Treliving can pull that off in some way, well,
there are awards for GMs who make the impossible possible.
Shanahan used to urge patience, as did his former GM Dubas, but the
time for patience has passed. This Leafs team has proved to be more
frustrating for Leafs Nation than the Maple Leafs teams that missed
the playoffs 10 of 11 years after the lost season to lockout of 2005.
Back then, the Leafs were just pathetic. That we much understood. You
are not pathetic when you have Matthews, Marner and Nylander up front,
which is not that far off from the Red Wings once having Steve
Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov and Shanahan up front.
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That Detroit team played in three Cup finals, with three different
goalies, won their three championships winning 12 of 13 Stanley Cup
final games.
That team, in performance, with Nicklas Lidstrom on defence, with the
legendary Scotty Bowman coaching, had an all-time feel about them and
still does.
The Maple Leafs are known now as the team that almost won in Round 1.
That came so close.
Not in Round 2. Not in any round beyond that. Not losing in the final
or any final.
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Sometimes a team comes out of nowhere the way the St. Louis Blues did
in 2019 or the way the Los Angeles Kings did in 2012. Both teams
missed the playoffs the year before winning their first Cup. The
Washington Capitals won six rounds of playoffs in 10 years before they
won their Cup in 2018.
There aren't any teams like the Leafs out there. They have been the
third-best team in hockey in an Shanahan era that began with gifts
named Matthews, Marner and Nylander. Gifts that were covered in riches
before they had earned them. And now what?
A coach fired, if that happens to Sheldon Keefe? A new team president
or the old president with new words?
It still comes back to the history and the statistical shortcomings —
11 goals scored in eight elimination games. A high-powered, highly
paid offence that can't produce under pressure.
This is long past the point of patience. That only question that
matters: What now for these consistently troubled and somewhat
delusional Maple Leafs?
What now?
ssimmons@postmedia.com
twitter.com/simmonssteve
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