The bottom might not be as bad this time around
The Leafs have had plenty of horrible seasons in the past, too often followed by moves of desperation
For a team that is tied for last in the NHL, with one win in its last10 games and likely to miss the playoffs for the 10th time in 11 seasons, things sure are quiet around the Toronto Maple Leafs.
There will be no bloodletting this year as there was last when general manager Dave Nonis, head coach Peter Horachek, the assistant coaches and a bevy of scouts lost their jobs.
The off-season hirings of head coach Mike Babcock and GM Lou Lamoriello have changed the conversation from: “How bad are the Leafs?” to “How good will they be in a year or two?”
Tyler Bozak, who has lived through the tumultuous times in an entire NHL career spent with the Leafs, has noticed.
“There’s a lot of excitement with Mike and Lou here,” Bozak said. “They’ve done a lot of good things with teams before. There’s a lot of trust for them to turn the ship around here. Hopefully, we’re on the right track.”
That may not be reflected in the standings, where the Leafs (17-22-9) find themselves tied for last in points with Columbus and Edmonton.
But there’s a plan that goes beyond this season, building on recent drafts that netted them such prospects as William Nylander and Mitch Marner, and trades that brought them others like Kasperi Kapanen and Zach Hyman.
The Leafs have had terrible seasons before, each with its own set of ramifications. The franchise has been in seeming disarray for almost 50 years.
1969-70: The Leafs finished last in the East Division, their first year under GM Jim Gregory. Older Leafs either retired (Johnny Bower) or were traded (Tim Horton, Bob Pulford). Gregory shored up the goaltending, bringing in Jacques Plante,
Brian Burke wore the Phil Kessel trade like a scarlet letter and fans seemed to hold the trade against the sniper
and drafted Darryl Sittler with the eighth overall pick. Sittler would go on to become captain of a fairly good team through the 1970s, one that made it to the semifinals in 1978 but would ultimately labour under the weight of cantankerous owner Harold Ballard’s cheap and meddling style.
1984-85: The Leafs finished last in the NHL and, for the only time in their history, chose first overall. There were two players deemed equal: Craig Simpson and Wendel Clark. The chatter suggested Simpson didn’t want to play for Ballard. The Leafs chose Clark, a rough and tumble defenceman-turned-winger who played the beat-’em-in-the-alley hockey Ballard loved. Eventually Clark would captain the team that, after Ballard’s passing, would make it to the Western Conference final in 1993 and ’94.
1988-89: A disaster from beginning to end. The Leafs finished last in the Norris Division and missed the playoffs . Hard-nosed coach John Brophy demanded GM Gord Stellick get rid of speedy Russ Courtnall for enforcer John Kordic. Montreal gladly obliged. Brophy was fired. There was no captain, with Rick Vaive traded prior to the season. Stellick managed to trade Ken Wregget into two firstround picks, giving the Leafs three that summer. Inexplicably, the Leafs used them all on players from the Belleville Bulls. None of Scott Thornton (third overall), Rob Pearson (12th) or Steve Bancroft (21st) fully panned out.
1990-91: The Leafs had fooled themselves into thinking they were a playoff team the season before, and traded away their first-round pick in 1991 for puck-moving defenceman Tom Kurvers. But the Leafs again finished last in the Norris. Coach Doug Carpenter was fired by new GM Floyd Smith. In a draft year with Eric Lindros up for grabs, the Leafs couldn’t afford to finish last and made12 in-season trades designed to finish ahead of the Quebec Nordiques. With the third overall pick the Leafs had surrendered for Kurvers, the Devils chose Hall of Fame defenceman Scott Niedermayer. Smith was fired, replaced by Cliff Fletcher.
1996-97: The magical Doug Gilmour-Cliff Fletcher era crashed to a halt. The Leafs, who had missed the playoffs the year before, finished last in the Central Division. Fletcher had repatriated Wendel Clark and acquired veterans like Kirk Muller, but he did so at the cost of first-round picks both in1996 (which turned into Dainius Zubrus) and 1997 (Roberto Luongo). Fletcher finally traded Gilmour for a package of decent prospects — Jason Smith, Steve Sullivan and Alyn McCauley, who would each be squandered by subsequent regimes. Fletcher was replaced by Ken Dryden as GM.
2009-10: An 0-7-1 start doomed Brian Burke’s Leafs, who had traded their first-round picks in 2010 and 2011 (plus a second rounder) for Phil Kessel. They finished second-last in the NHL, and Boston used the No. 2 pick to take Tyler Seguin. Burke wore the trade like a scarlet letter and fans seemed to hold the trade against Kessel, the best pure sniper the team had had since Alexander Mogilny.