No Bad Outcome for the Leafs

The other day I got to thinking, is there really a bad out come to the Maple Leafs season… The only one I could think of was Mats Sundin coming back and the Leafs finishing 9th. Since it looks like Mats will be taking at least half the season off, and its very unlikely he will return to the Leafs. This leaves us with only positive outcomes for the Mats-less Leafs.

Leafs spend the season battling it out for 30th overall. This is what many people are expecting to happen. While I don’t see the Leafs being that bad, it does have a good outcome, a really high draft pick, and the possibility of picking one of several talented forwards. The best case scenario would be the Leafs get off to a horrible start, but by the end of the year a few of their younger players are starting to look better, and team chemistry is forming. However by this time they are too far down in the standing for it to affect anything. As previously mentioned, I personally don’t see them being a bottom 5 team.

Leafs surprise everyone and make playoffs. If this happens, especially with out Mats, it is an amazing accomplishment from the underdog Leafs. What would need to occur for this to happen is Toskala be solid in net, and Ron Wilson’s defence methods work well with the current roster of players. It would take more than this though for them to make the playoffs, it would also require scoring, and to get the required scoring would mean that several of the young players would have had to had break out seasons, and picked up the slack in the absence on Mats Sundin. This has the obvious implication that we have more than one top 6 forward, and have a very solid group of players to continue to build around. During the next summer we would also have the cap space to pick up several established players and make a stronger team for 08/09.

Leafs finish 9th or 10th, and miss playoffs. While this sounds like a horrible out come it really isn’t that bad when you think about it. If they finish this high something has to have gone right, it could be the defence/goal tending or it could be the offence. If it is the defence/goal tending then the problem lies with the forwards, and since we have some cap space it would be possible for us to pick up a true top 6 forward or two during the off season. If it is the defence then we have Schenn up and coming, and can always make trades and pick up players in the off season. If it is goal tending (which I do not see happening) then JFJ screwed up two years in a row with the whole goal tending situation, but we could see how Pogge is doing, or pick up a goal tender in the off season.

As you can see there is not bad out come for the Mats-less Maple Leafs this year, at least if you are in an optimistic enough mood!