Toronto Maple Leafs: 5 Reasons They Were so Bad This Season

Just a few months ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs sat in sixth in the Eastern Conference standings, looking to pad their points total and and ensure they'd be playing postseason hockey for the first time since the lockout season of 2004-2005.

Unfortunately for the Leafs and their fans, they ended up going through a collapse of monumental proportions, which landed them in the 13th spot in the Eastern Conference and with a lottery pick in June's NHL entry draft.

So where did everything go wrong in hockey's biggest market? Who's to blame for the meteoric fall of the most beloved organization in the league?

Here are five reasons everything went wrong.

Goaltending

Let us begin with the obvious.

Toronto's goaltending was the primary cause for this year's meltdown.

Toronto goalies combined for an abysmal .898 save percentage, tying them with the New York Islanders for second to last in the NHL, ahead of only the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Maple Leafs were also the second worst team in the NHL when it comes to allowing goals. Once again, the Leafs only placed ahead of Tampa Bay (which allowed 3.39 goals per game), allowing 3.16 goals per contest.

While there were holes defensively, ultimately much of the blame rests on the shoulders of Toronto's netminders.

Lack of Secondary Scoring

Heading into the 2011-2012 season, the Maple Leafs felt confident they would have a balanced team with a potent offense.

After the line consisting of Mikhail Grabovski, Nikolai Kulemin and Clarke MacArthur had such a successful 2010-2011 season, Leafs management believed a solid second line was in place for 2011-2012.

Signing Tim Connolly to play with a healthy Joffrey Lupul and Phil Kessel was supposed to give the Leafs a first line that would be tough to contain.

Finally, the signing of John-Michael Liles was supposed to give the Leafs another offensive option at the blue line to complement Dion Phaneuf.

Unfortunately for Toronto, only Kessel and Grabovski were effective for the whole season, while Lupul finished off the season hurt, and Liles never looked the same after his concussion (very much like James Reimer).

Connolly was a major bust (though expectations were too high to begin with, seeing as he's never tallied more than 18 goals in any given season and is not a true No. 1 center). In fact, he ended up playing a good portion of the season on Toronto's third line. All the while making $4.75 million.

As for the second line, Kulemin had the worst season of his career, while MacArthur returned to being the player he had been his entire career before arriving in Toronto.

In the end, once teams figured out they only had to shut down two or three offensive weapons, without fear of reprisal, the Leafs were unable to win hockey games.

No True No. 1 Center

For years now the Maple Leafs have lacked a bona fide No. 1 center.

Ever since Mats Sundin left, Toronto management has been unsuccessful at acquiring a true first line centerman.

This year was no exception.

The best table-setter for goal scoring machine Phil Kessel was Joffrey Lupul, his left-winger, not whoever was playing center on any given night.

Once Lupul suffered a season-ending injury, Kessel's production also started to falter.

While this team needs more offensive help at all positions, bringing in a top-tier center has to be high on the priority list, especially when you've got a player like Kessel on your roster, who is ever so close to becoming a perennial 40-goal scorer.

Underperforming Contracts

Mike Komisarek. Matthew Lombardi. Colby Armstrong. Tim Connolly.

Those four players alone eat up $15.75 million of the Maple Leafs' cap space.

They combined to play a total of 205 games this past season, totaling just 62 points and a player rating of minus-54.

Those numbers are unbelievably bad before you even take their salary into consideration.

Not only did these four players not manage to contribute anything on the ice, but they ensured they were worth just about nothing on the trade market and ended up being a huge obstacle for GM Brian Burke at the trade deadline (though Burke didn't seem to eager to improve the team anyway).

Underachievers were undoubtedly one of the biggest contributing factors to the Leafs having such an abysmal season.

Coaching

While it's hard to to place too much blame on any coaching staff, it's fair to say coaching played a part in Toronto's demise in 2012.

While Ron Wilson was given a corps of forwards who were smaller and built for a fast-pace game, yet a group of defensemen that was built more for playing a slower, tougher brand of hockey, Wilson chose to stick with a run-and-gun philosophy.

The result was a group of defensive defensemen who were embarrassed on a regular basis (think Luke Schenn and Mike Komisarek).

His routine of calling out individuals to one of the most savage media markets in sports could not have helped in the development of a young squad, either.

Meanwhile, in net, goalie coach Francois Allaire was busy telling James Reimer to scrap what made him successful in his brief stint with Toronto in the 2010-2011 season and adopt the philosophy that rebounds are fine and defensemen will clear those pucks away.

Problem is, Toronto did not have a defensive corps that was tough enough in front of its own net, and many of those rebounds ended up on opposing sticks, and eventually, in the back of Toronto's net.

Hopefully Randy Carlyle and his staff will be able to institute a style of play more geared to the roster he is working with.

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