A Dream Of Spring: Looking Ahead At The Toronto Maple Leafs 2022-23 Season
With the age of fairytales being over for the Leafs, it's time for the team to embrace its true nature...
For 55 years now, one of the most repeated jokes in the NHL is that the official slogan of the Toronto Maple Leafs should be, “There’s always next year.”
In more recent years, Leafs fans have added a second part to this, and every October the words of Michael Gary Scott echo throughout Leafs Nation.
“No question about it, I’m ready to get hurt again.”
And can you blame us? Not only has the team not won the Stanley Cup since 1967, but they also haven’t even won a playoff series since 2004. To make matters worse, the team has lost six straight first-round playoff series, with the last five ending in winner-take-all final games.
This is not to say every spring is the same. No, every elimination over the last six years has brought its own unique feeling.
In 2017, it was optimism. The team was coming off a last-place finish the year before, which lead to them drafting Auston Matthews first overall. They weren’t expected to make the playoffs and then went up against the Washington Capitals, who were the best team in the regular season, and gave them six games of hell (five of them went to overtime). The team looked well-suited to improve on this result the next season.
2018 was a more cautious feeling of optimism. They technically made it further than they did the year before, losing to the Boston Bruins in seven games as opposed to the six games that it took Washington to dispatch them. Next year would be different, we told ourselves.
The 2019 loss, also to the Boston Bruins, was where things started to change. This loss was different because they really should have won. They were up the in the series, and could have eliminated the Bruins in game six—at home! But they lost that game and then lost game seven in Boston. After their elimination in 2019, despair had begun to creep in.
Everything about 2020 was different—except the result. The pandemic cut the NHL season short, leading to the “bubble playoffs” which saw all the games be played in either Toronto or Edmonton and began with several best-of-five “play-in” rounds.
To call the 2019-2020 Leafs imperfect would be an understatement, but they still seemed well-positioned to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets and break their first-round curse. They even had a miraculous comeback of their own, winning game four in overtime being down 3-0 with less than ten minutes to play, the sort of thing they are usually on the other end of. And yet, when game five ended, it was the Blue Jackets celebrating their advance to the real first round of the playoffs.
When this series was over there was only one emotion on my mind: rage. Anger at a wasted opportunity, and the wasted magic of the game four comeback.
2021 was the year of the all-Canadian, North Division. Covid prevented regular cross-border travel, which led to the entire season (and the first two rounds of the playoffs) being played entirely within the divisions. The Leafs were by all metrics the best team in the North Division and finished atop the standings. If ever there were an “easy” path to the Cup, this was it. And for a brief moment, it looked like this would be the case. The Leafs were up 3-1 in the best-of-seven series against their historic rivals, the Montreal Canadiens. And yet, it was the Canadiens who made it to the Stanley Cup finals and the Leafs who went home after just seven games.
After game six, when the Canadiens tied the series, I remember thinking, “this team is a bunch of chokers”, although I didn’t want to actually say it until they completed the collapse. The day of game seven was miserable, with the feeling of inevitability looming over the team. And when destiny arrived (as Thanos might put it), I was surprised to find I didn’t feel anything. Emptiness was the feeling this time, emptiness at yet another game seven loss. Why even bother?
Despite this, when last season began I was ready to get hurt again. And throughout the season, I slowly bought into the idea that maybe this year could be different. How naïve I was.
When the 2022 playoffs began, the Leafs were faced with the task of defeating the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions: The Tampa Bay Lightning. What better way to end the curse, than by unseating the champs? And for a minute, it looked like they might. Just like in 2019, they had the chance to win the series in six games only to lose back-to-back games and be eliminated again.
This time, the feeling was different. It didn’t feel like they’d blown it, certainly not the way they had in 2020 and 2021. Instead, it felt like they’d been screwed.
I hate being “that guy”, who blames the officials. The vast majority of the time, I believe referees are doing their best and don’t have a problem with them. They don’t always get it right, far from it, but their influence on the game is often overstated. But in Game Seven, they directly impacted the outcome.
First, they called back a goal scored by Leafs captain John Tavares to call a penalty on defenseman Justin Holl. The penalty was borderline, the sort of thing that could be called more often than it is but nine times out of ten is just ignored by all. And to the Leafs’ credit, they bounced back, scoring the actual game tie-ing goal moments later. The real crime, to me, came on the game-winning goal scored by Tampa Bay’s Nick Paul. During the sequence that led to Paul’s goal, Leafs D-man Jake Muzzin doesn’t have a stick. The reason? It had been ripped out of his hands by Tampa’s Ondrej Palat.
If the call on Holl was a penalty, then certainly Palat’s infraction merited a call as well. And to anyone reading this, especially Tampa fans, who feel like saying, “die mad about it,” rest assured, I will.
So what now? What emotions are left for the Leafs to put their fans through? And is there any way to break the curse going forward?
A Fairytale No More
No curse lasts forever. The last twenty years of Baseball have proven that with two of the most famous curses in sports being broken. We just have to hope that the Leafs don’t have to wait as long as the Boston Red Sox (86 years) and the Chicago Cubs (108 years) to see our curse come to an end.
With all this talk of curses, though, the temptation to view the cursed team as the hero in a fairytale. The plucky underdog faces down a dragon, defying the odds and winning the day. When we look back on the Cubs and the Red Sox and their eventual winning seasons, it is almost always through this lens.
And maybe we’ll look back on the Leafs that way if they ever break their curse. Maybe we’ll see them as Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins, taking on the unbeatable enemy and winning the day. But in the present, the Leafs have lost their fairytale status. Maybe that’s what they were in 2017 and 2018, or even in 2019, but they lost that status after the embarrassing defeats in 2020 and 2021. They aren’t underdogs that no one expects to win, they’re chokers who everyone expects more of.
Shaking the chokers moniker won’t be easy, but they’ve already made some progress in that direction. The way they lost last season wasn’t as devastating as the two prior seasons—though so-called “moral victories” don’t actually mean anything when it comes to winning the Stanley Cup. But an all-out war with the two-time defending champions, who came this close to “three-peating”, that you were in it to the bitter end has to mean something. (Right…?)
So how should the Leafs see themselves on their long and winding quest for the Cup? Well, the age of fairytales may be over but we are now living in the age of the HBO fantasy-drama.
Winter Is Here
The fairytale metaphor was always a little ill-fitting for the Leafs. As one of the most storied and most powerful teams in the league, they were never really going to be seen as underdogs.
So who are they, then? How best to describe a team with a great legacy and great aspirations?
As one of Westeros’ great houses, of course! Specifically, the one whose civil war is playing out on our screens every week. House Targaryen, aka the house of the Dragon.
Before you click away, no this isn’t about to become one of those Buzzfeed-esque articles where we list which player on the Leafs is the equivalent of a character on House of the Dragon.
No, what I mean is that the Leafs need to embrace their place as one of the NHL’s powerhouses. I’m not saying they should act like villains on the ice by cheating or attempting to injure the other teams. But there’s no denying that for many if you’re not a Leafs fan, you probably don’t like the Leafs. As such, the team needs to embrace their destiny: it’s time to stop acting like a lovable loser that can win over the masses, and become the dragon they were always meant to be.
It’s what the teams they’re competing with do. The Tampa Lightning, Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche, and all the other top teams have done so and it’s paid dividends. This Leafs team certainly has enough firepower (pun intended) upfront to do the same.
To succeed in the 2022-23 season, the Leafs need to shed the skin they’ve been wearing for the past three seasons—that of the fool whose failures provide ample laughs for the court—and embrace their true identity as a beast to be feared (or, at least, respected). And I think I know the perfect way to do that.
A Dance With Dragons
The NHL season hasn’t even begun at the time of writing, and there are over eighty games between when you are likely reading this and the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs. But let’s assume (I know, a dangerous word) that the Leafs make it back to the playoffs. There’s one team I want to see them face. One dragon that, if they can slay will finally allow them to shake off the first-round curse of the last few years:
The Boston Bruins.
(File this under “getting way too ahead of ourselves.”)
In listing off the last six years’ worth of playoff defeats, a key part of the story was left out. As embarrassing as the losses to Columbus and Montreal might have been, there is another playoff loss that haunts the Leafs to this day. One that has lived on every year in Leafs fans’ minds for almost a decade now: the 2013 playoffs.
The 2013 first-round series between the Maple Leafs and the Bruins had all the makings of a fairytale. The Leafs, who were the clear underdogs, had gone down three games to one in the series and it looked to all observers that they were down and out.
But I believed.
When a work colleague questioned why I still wore my Leafs jersey on the day of game five (the day most assumed they would be eliminated), I replied, “There’s a reason why the series is a best-of-seven.” How close I was to being proved right.
The Leafs would battle back and win games five and six. And then in game seven, they did the unthinkable: they had a three-goal lead with ten minutes left in the third period. But then, the collapse happened. And the Bruins went on to win the game in overtime, crushing the dreams of a fanbase that hadn’t made the playoffs since 2004. The fact that Boston would go on to win two more game sevens against the Leafs was simply rubbing salt in the wound.
Ten years on, however, the roles in the story would be switched. In 2013 (and, arguably 2018 and 2019), the Leafs were the plucky underdogs and the Bruins were the big bad dragon. The storybook ending would have seen the Leafs winning and slaying the Boston dragon. Instead, the Bruins burned the Leafs’ playoff hopes to the ground.
This year, though, things would be different. This year’s Bruins have been described as having a “last dance” vibe. Those that remain from those Bruins teams of 2013, 2018, and 2019 are entering the twilight of their careers. Forwards Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci signed one-year contracts to return for the 2022-2023 season and 2020 goal-scoring leader David Pastrnak is in the final year of his contract. You do get the feeling that this season is this variant of the Boston Bruins’ final kick at the can.
All this to say that in a series between the Bruins and the Leafs in 2023, the storybook ending would see the Bruins win the day—the old crew comes together one last time to accomplish something great. And it would cast the Leafs in the role of villain, the ones getting in the way of something magical. Like the Bruins were to them so many times, the Leafs would be the dragon.
To be fair, the Bruins have earned their status as a dragon and would not easily shed it. But, as anyone watching House of the Dragon knows, a showdown between two sides armed with dragons can be very entertaining.
A Long Road Ahead
Is the scenario laid out above likely? No. There are too many things that can go wrong in an NHL season to even be sure that both the Leafs and Bruins make it to the playoffs. And while the set of circumstances required for a first-round match-up between the two is perhaps more likely the many other scenarios, it still would require a lot of things to fall into place.
And realistically, the Leafs beating anyone in the First Round would be a big deal. The fanbase has been starved of playoff success for coming up on eighteen years. So whoever the Leafs play, it would be a good idea for them to embrace their new dragon identity. The Maple Leafs’ version of the Dance of Dragons could easily be between them and any number of teams.
Mentality is key for this team, which has shown in the last two years that it has the talent to dominate in the regular season. It’s time to stop thinking of themselves as underdogs and embrace their place as one of the great teams in the league. A majestic beast, worthy of respect.
And if, in spite of everything, they come up short in their quest once again? Well, there’s always next year.