The Maple Leafs Finally Look Like They Have a Plan

I have to admit something. I think I’m going to like this Toronto Maple Leafs season. With Toronto, we've been down this road before. I've watched good Maple Leafs teams become disappointing Maple Leafs teams often enough to know that optimism can be a dangerous habit. And yet, like many Maple Leafs fans, here I am again.

There seems to be a plan with this Maple Leafs roster.

What has changed for me is that I'm not looking at this team simply as a collection of players. I'm starting to see a plan. That's what John Chayka has done that has caught my attention.

Toronto lost a lot of offence. That's the easy part of the story. You can look at the goals and points that left and decide the Maple Leafs must be worse. But Chayka seems to have been building something different. He isn't trying to replace every lost point with another player who produces the same points.

Chayka has been building a portfolio of players.

A little more size here. A little more defensive responsibility there. Better faceoff ability. More depth. Players with specific jobs. Players who might be more useful in April than they are in October. And then there's the thing I've been coming back to again and again: thinking.

I wonder if these Maple Leafs might actually be better if they are allowed to think again. Last season, it often seemed as though the fear of making a mistake was almost as important as making the right play. But hockey isn't played that way. The best players read what is happening, adjust and solve the problem in front of them.

Maybe new Maple Leafs head coach Jim Hiller can create that kind of environment.

Maybe head coach Jim Hiller allows the team to trust their hockey IQ and play. And maybe youngster Gavin McKenna is the ultimate wild card in all of this. He doesn't have to become a superstar immediately. He simply has to show that Toronto has another player who can think the game at a different level.

So am I talking myself into the Maple Leafs again? Maybe. But this time I don't think it's just because I'm looking at the names on the roster and hoping they all have great seasons.

Can Auston Matthews lead this team again? Is Sergei Bobrovsky still a good goalie?

Of course, possibility isn't probability. Matthews still has to be Matthews. The goaltending has to hold up. The new players have to fit. Hiller has to get the system right. And McKenna has to actually be as good as everybody thinks he might be.

That's a lot of “ifs.” But here's why I keep coming back to this team. For the first time in a while, I don't think Toronto is simply trying to build the best team it can for October. I think it's trying to build the kind of team it believes can survive April.

And if Chayka is right about that, maybe the Maple Leafs aren't simply another version of the same old story. Maybe that's why I'm talking myself into them again.