The Toronto Maple Leafs have always been a serious team, but this particular squad instills an aura of self-belief that's lacked in past years, writes Mike Stephens.
"There's a seriousness about this group," Brad Treliving told reporters on Wednesday, kicking off his first training camp as GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs following a whirlwind summer.
"It's been very impressive."
The Maple Leafs have always been a serious team – perhaps to their own detriment. The reputation of Treliving's predecessor being being hip and cool with the youth often clouded the fact that Kyle Dubas' tenure with the club came underlined by a sense of tension, a stiffness that permeated into every crevice of the organization. The weight of expectation has been crushing the Leafs for the past half-decade. And, as it does, that weight turned that seriousness into doubt and that doubt into failure.
That doesn't seem to be the case this year. At least in contrast to the last.
The Maple Leafs opened training camp in 2022 with anvils perched precariously over their heads. Their GM and architect of nearly every facet of the organization was a lame duck, strong-armed into managing the season on the last year of his deal with no extension in sight – bringing forth rumors of turmoil between Dubas and Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, which, ultimately, seemed to come true. And from those rumors came increasing tension surrounding the franchise face, Auston Matthews, who was eligible to sign an extension the coming summer. Matthews and Dubas were known to be close. If the latter left, would the former stay?
On top of all that was the same purveying issue: The lack of playoff success, punctuated by another first-round, Game 7 loss in which the stars faltered when the lights were brightest.
One year later, all three boat anchors lifted. Treliving is GM and, as such, not fighting for his job, solidifying the most important piece of the managerial Jenga tower. He spent his first summer at the helm locking Matthews up to a four-year extension to keep one of hockey's best talents in Toronto for the next half-decade. And, most crucially, the Maple Leafs conquered their demons last season, leaping over the lowest bar for contention by getting out of the first round for the first time since 2004.
As Day 1 of training camp unfolded, the sense of ease was apparent. Players laughed and conversed during drills. Their sticks were gripped looser – the air they breathed fresher.
Perhaps, an injection of new blood was what this team needed.
"It's exciting to have some new faces," explained Matthews on Wednesday.
"As far as Kyle goes, I mean, I thought I had a really good relationship with him. And it's been really good to have Brad come along with that change being made, and he's been great at communicating and expressing his beliefs and expectations for ourselves and the team."
Despite those new faces, the Maple Leafs are, on paper, in a remarkably similar position heading into this campaign as they were others.
This is not just a cap-crunched club. They are currently being put through a hydraulic press of dollars and cents.
No team sits higher above the $83.5 million limit than Toronto at the time of writing, with the Leafs still being roughly $3 million over, even with Jake Muzzin and Matt Murray's combined $10.3 million for 2023-24 on LTIR. Not to mention, more and more of their young players – like top goalie prospect Joseph Woll, for instance – are now eligible for waivers. Difficult decisions involving quality pieces are coming one way or another – be it via trades or demotions.
This certainly isn't a new occurrence for these Leafs. They've lost more players on waivers over the past three years than any other club, for Pete's sake. The difference is that this time, no one is talking about it. Not a peep. And that mentality seems to come from the top. There's no hand-wringing or pearl-clutching that practically defined past camps. Simply an air of "whatever happens, happens."
"There aren't a lot of 'Help Wanted' signs on our roster right now," stated Treliving when asked about the cap crunch.
"There's one or two spots, depending on how things go. But I wanted that path for those (young players) to be a little clearer. And if there was somebody out there that I thought could help us, we would."
Whereas the Maple Leafs padded their camp roster in past years with veteran PTO invitees such as Nikita Gusev, Zach Aston-Reese, Michal Neuvirth and Josh Ho-Sang, Treliving has put the onus to fill out the periphery of the roster internally, stating numerous times about providing a path to the younger players in the organization and even creating a third training camp group solely of prospects in need of extra seasoning to give the ones knocking on the door more runway on which to make their case.
These are all subtle changes – ones that may or may not pay off when compared to those from years before. But what they seem to instill is an aura of self-belief that hasn't been evident within this particular core, outside of the cliche "We think we're good enough to win" quotes that have been lobbed at the media since 2017.
Of course, being just two days into training camp makes this all just a theory. And, to quote the movie of the summer, "Theory will only take you so far." But it's impossible not to recognize the difference in how the 2023-24 Toronto Maple Leafs carry themselves. It's a positive difference that, for the time being, seems to be precisely what the doctor ordered.