Will the NHL season pause actually help the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Without making light of this devastating virus that’s sweeping across the entire world, the NHL’s season pause gives the Toronto Maple Leafs a much-needed extended break.

It’s been an odd season for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Early in the year, the once highly touted Mike Babcock was fired due to the teams’ lack of success. After he was relieved of his coaching duties, a whirlwind of negative stories followed about his inappropriate motivating methods.

Early on in his Maple Leafs’ tenure, he asked Mitch Marner during his rookie season to rank his teammates from hardest working to least hardest working. Babcock later shared the list with the team.

When you consider the stories we know during his time as the bench boss with the Detroit Red Wings, we shouldn’t be caught off guard. Remember, he did make Mike Modano a healthy scratch during the final game of the regular season during his last NHL season, forcing his career to end with 1,499 games played. Imagine that, preventing a superstar like Modano from achieving 1,500 career games played. There is a laundry list of other senseless acts he’s administered throughout his coaching career.

However, it appeared as though the team had entirely quit on Babcock during the start of the season, and the door was open for the highly regarded Toronto Marlies coach Sheldon Keefe to get his first kick at the can in the NHL. The Maple Leafs responded positively immediately. After a 9-10-4 start to the season under Babcock, Toronto posted a respectable 27-15-5 record with Keefe at the helm.

As COVID-19 roared on forcing the NHL to be suspended, the Maple Leafs currently sit third in the Atlantic Division with 81 points after 70 games played. The Florida Panthers are fourth with 78 points in 69 regular season games played.

It’s a break that will benefit no one if the league becomes a wash. Understanding that, if the NHL returns this season, it’s a break that will help the Maple Leafs.

Along with star netminder Frederik Andersen, the Maple Leafs were stricken with a pair of significant injuries both the team’s top two defensemen Morgan Rielly and Jake Muzzin were injured. As such, the Maple Leafs were struggling to stave off the Panthers. The team was just getting healthy at the time of the shutdown, and this stoppage allows the organization to become wholly healthy and rested.

It’s a team that’s had to scratch and claw all season long to find success. Still, this break allows the Maple Leafs — who were sputtering to regroup ahead of potentially restarting the season in a playoff scenario — to get healthy. If the NHL returns, expect the league to forgo the remainder of the regular season and start with the first round of the playoffs.  At this point, that is certainly in doubt, but if the NHL returns this season, the break will have certainly aided the Maple Leafs.

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