Where Do The Maple Leafs Go From Here?

History says unsuccessful cores like Toronto's usually get broken up.

Another year, another disappointing playoff exit for the Toronto Maple Leafs. And the ouster the team suffered Friday night, losing to the Florida Panthers in overtime of Game 5 in the Eastern Conference semifinals, stings more than most. Maybe that’s because it came after Toronto finally emerged from Round 1 for the first time in 19 years; maybe that’s because the Leafs had dreams of a 3-0 comeback (which does happen in hockey) when they won Game 4 and clawed back to force OT in Friday’s contest. Maybe it’s even because Florida wasn’t ever supposed to be here in the first place.

Whatever the source of suffering, the pain will run deep for Toronto and its fans. When former New York Islanders star — and Greater Toronto native — John Tavares arrived via free agency in the summer of 2018, he combined with homegrown Leafs Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly to complete a Big Five core of players that was supposed to deliver Toronto its first Stanley Cup since 1967. Five years later, the Leafs have zero Cups and just 1 series win to show for it — and big questions about whether their group of franchise players can ever win a title together.

If we look at the Leafs’ group of five stars, Matthews (113.9), Marner (92.5), Tavares (79.4), Nylander (65.3) and Rielly (64.6) have collectively produced 415.7 adjusted Goals Above Replacement during their five seasons together. Among quintets that played for the same franchise together for an entire 5-year period, that ranks 54th in all of NHL history, going back to 1917-18. But it also ranks ninth among groups that never actually won a Cup together during any of those five seasons — and third among groups that never made a Cup Final either, pending if Edmonton’s core of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard can come back from down 3-2 against the Golden Knights this weekend.

(It’s not lost on me that both Canadian entrants in the second round of the playoffs are also on this list. But of course, McDavid and Draisaitl are doing a lot of the work for Edmonton’s entry, combining for 66% of the Oilers’ total. The Leafs’ group is more balanced, with every member contributing between 27% and 16% of the group’s overall GAR.)

The sad reality of the NHL is that most of these core groups were dismantled over the years that followed. While most were intact for at least 1 additional season, almost 40% of the core members (among teams not currently active) were no longer with the club within 3 seasons, and nearly 60% were gone within 5 seasons. Toronto’s core is a bit younger than the other groups on the list above, and in a salary-capped era of the league, all are under contract for at least next season, if not longer. So they may be more likely to stay together than history’s most successful unsuccessful fivesomes.

But those same historical comparisons tell us that talented groups often need to be broken up to move forward. And that success is possible — if not exactly common — after such actions are taken. Look at the No. 1 group on our list: the Islanders won 33 playoff games in the mid-to-late-’70s behind a group that had been in place since the franchise’s first few seasons of existence. But after shuffling that core some, and adding a couple of Hall of Famers to it later in the forms of Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier, New York actually won 4 Cups after the period listed above.

Admittedly, those Islanders were outliers. Most of the best Cup-less quintets dissolved without ever leading to bigger and better things for the franchise. Maybe these Leafs will turn into Toronto’s version of the 1990s Philadelphia Flyers, a Legion of Doom that never fully capitalized on their immense talent. But it feels like Toronto’s Big Five have tried everything they can to win as currently constituted, and it hasn’t ever come close to being enough. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, drastic change might be the only sane option.

Filed under: NHL