Northern Exposure: Maple Leafs are coming of age

Even though the Toronto Maple Leafs finished last in the league last year, it was one of their most successful seasons in a long time. Off the ice, the management group adopted a scorched earth policy by stripping away as many parts of the Dave Nonis regime as possible.

On the ice, the team didn’t get blown out a lot, and their style of play was a far cry from what fans saw under Randy Carlyle. Gone were the days where they would get out-shot by a wide margin while scoring at an absurdly high rate, then go through a late season collapse after the inevitable regression.

And with William Nylander and Mitch Marner already in tow, Toronto drafted a guy who strengthens their prospect pool, and can serve as a franchise cornerstone: Auston Matthews. He’s the first player the Leafs have selected first overall since 1985, when they drafted Wendel Clark, and the first true, top-line center they’ve had since Mats Sundin. If he turns out to be as good as advertised, he’ll be just as beloved as those two were.

For a coach that’s as accustomed to winning as he is, Mike Babcock took to losing fairly well last season. Of course, he knew what he signed up for when he famously told Leafs Nation, “there will be pain.” Last season was only the second time Babcock has failed to make the playoffs. The Leafs aren’t expected to make it back this year either, but their coach is intent on ending the team’s postseason drought soon.

Toronto is far from being a Cup contender. But with the way this team has been built, they’ll get there sooner than you think.

The Kids are Alright

The Leafs’ young guns are for real. ESPN ranked theirs the best prospect pool in the NHL, since there’s talent at every position. This was all true even before Auston Matthews arrived, and Leafs fans got a glimpse of the young talent towards the tail end of last season.

The Maple Leafs’ 2015-16 season consisted of two parts. The first saw a roster full of players on expiring contracts auditioning to be traded by the deadline. The second saw a ton of AHL players called up and given a chance to prove they could compete at the NHL level. In terms of excitement and watchability, the second half of the season was much better.

The most high-profile Toronto Marlies call-up, William Nylander, put up great numbers. He scored six goals and 13 points in 22 NHL games, and will only benefit from a full season under Mike Babcock. Other players that impressed, like Connor Brown and Nikita Soshnikov, will begin the season on the Marlies roster, but could easily get another crack at the Leafs roster soon.

One player who didn’t play at all last season was Mitch Marner. The Leafs didn’t feel he was ready for the NHL, and so he went back to junior. But in his last season with the London Knights, Marner flat out dominated, scoring 160 points in 75 games. He also won every trophy imaginable to make the case that he’ll be ready this year:

The comparisons throughout the draft of Marner to Patrick Kane created a lot of pressure, but so far the 19-year-old has lived up to it.

Finally, there’s Nikita Zaitsev, the young defenseman signed straight from Russia. Outside of those who regularly watch the KHL, not many people know what Zaitsev brings to the table. But if his performance at the World Cup is any indication, he should be valuable to the Leafs’ defensive core as a right-handed shooter.

All aboard the Auston Matthews hype train

There’s a difference between being a first overall pick, and being a first overall pick in Toronto. It’s a hockey-crazy market, and the media scrutiny can be pretty intense. Matthews, so far, has embraced the pressure that comes with that sort of environment.

The 19-year-old center was deemed the savior of the franchise more or less from the moment he was drafted, and he’s taken well to his new surroundings, saying all the right things and generally looking comfortable. As a Scottsdale native who played overseas in Switzerland, he’s never had this much attention on him before. But it’s certainly something he’s planned for, because it doesn’t seem to have fazed him.

And if you need evidence he’ll perform well in this hockey market, look no further than the World Cup of Hockey. Playing on Team North America gave Matthews his first chance to play in front of the Air Canada Centre crowd before the Leafs’ season even started. Whatever expectations people had of him heading into that tournament, he blew them out of the water from the moment he stepped onto the ice:

It didn’t take long for him to replicate that in-game. His opening goal against Sweden was a work of art:

All told, Matthews registered a point in every single game in the World Cup, finishing with two goals and three points in three games. Of course, he won’t have the same supporting cast on the Leafs that he had at the World Cup, but his individual brilliance will still carry over. If everything goes well, he could end an even longer trophy drought than the Leafs’ Stanley Cup one: if he were to win it, Matthews would become the first Calder Trophy winner from Toronto since Brit Selby in 1966.

The front office ties it all together

I know what you’re thinking. What about that team with all those elite prospects that never goes anywhere? There’s a reason the Edmonton Oilers have been rebuilding for the past 10 years: their front office. Darryl Katz is one of the worst owners to ever grace the NHL. He’s the James Dolan of Edmonton, having driven a once-great franchise into the ground.

Since Katz took over in 2008, the Oilers have a .354 winning percentage. That’s because he hires GMs and coaches who think the best way to restore the Oilers to their former glory is to replicate their 1980s brand of hockey, going all out on offense while abandoning defense and goaltending.

And while the Oilers’ poor seasons always result in high draft picks, just look at the list of players they’ve selected outside the first round from 2008 onwards — how many of those guys are still playing in the NHL?

The Leafs were once guilty of this sort of stuff, too. John Ferguson Jr., Cliff Fletcher, and Dave Nonis are among the worst general managers in franchise history. They drafted poorly and made trades that set the team back years.

Nonis’ offseason in 2013 is a prime example, and it inspired this masterpiece from SB Nation’s Pension Plan Puppets. James Reimer somehow dragged Toronto’s lifeless corpse of a team to the playoffs, but Nonis went out and acquired Jonathan Bernier anyway, throwing Reimer under the bus for the team’s postseason collapse. He then traded for Dave Bolland and David Clarkson while getting rid of one of their most productive duos, Clarke MacArthur and Mikhail Grabovski, for nothing.

Then, in 2014, the Leafs discovered analytics, and everything changed. Dave Poulin and Claude Loiselle were fired and Kyle Dubas came in — the move represented a complete 180 in the team’s philosophy. Brendan Shanahan, Mark Hunter and Brandon Pridham joined Dubas in the Toronto front office, while Lou Lamoriello was added a season later. All have played a significant role in the Leafs’ current rebuild, and together they comprise arguably the smartest front office in all of hockey.

Poulin and Loiselle were David Clarkson’s greatest spokesmen; Shanahan and Dubas helped drive him out of town. Hunter, who came from the London Knights, had a clear hand in the Mitch Marner pick, and is a master scout. Pridham is one of the best guys in the league at managing the salary cap. And based on the way he’s been wheeling and dealing already, it’s clear they don’t call him “Loophole Lou” for nothing.

Of the Leafs that played under the last regime, only James van Riemsdyk, Nazem Kadri, Tyler Bozak, Morgan Rielly and Jake Gardiner remain. While some of them could leave this season, they’re all considered key pieces in the current rebuild.

Dubas and Co. have also turned out to be excellent salesmen, because why else would Mike Babcock come to Toronto? It’s just too bad they could convince Steven Stamkos to come along with him.

Expectation for 2016-17

If last season was all about building Toronto’s new core, this season will be about letting it develop on the ice. While the Leafs aren’t yet good enough to be a playoff team, they’re too talented to finish in the bottom five.

And Leafs fans should be okay with that. They’re still in a rebuild, and that takes time. Even elite cores, like those in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Los Angeles, had to wait until their second year together to make the playoffs, and even longer than that before they made a deep run.

Suffice it to say, the roster will look a lot different than it did last year. The goal then was to stockpile draft picks, so the team signed a bunch of players to one-year deals they could then use as trade bait. There’s a few examples of that this year with guys like Milan Michalek, Roman Polak and Brandon Prust. But for the most part the team will look more like the one from the tail end of last season.

Next: All 30 NHL Franchises Ranked By All-Time Greatness

There’s only way to find out whether the Leafs’ new core is ready. But everything we’ve seen up to this point suggests they’re very, very close.