When you read this headline, you may have laughed out loud, but trust me, the Toronto Maple Leafs can win the Stanley Cup this year.
Professional sports are amazing and sports gambling is so prevelant because we all think we can predict the future. However, Vegas always wins because we are rarely right. When Auston Matthews is supposed to score a hat-trick and beat the worst team in the league, the Toronto Maple Leafs lose 2-1. However, when they're playing the toughest opponent and reigning Stanley Cup champions, they'll win 9-2.
Sports are the only thing we have left that feels real and unpredictable and it's why we love them. The Boston Red Sox went 86 years without a championship, followed by the Chicago Cubs breaking an 108-year drought.
Not only that, but it wasn't that long ago that the New England Patriots were considered one of the biggest laughing stocks of the NFL, but if you ask any football fan under 30 years old, they'd be flabbergasted by that statement.
As a result, the Toronto Maple Leafs will win eventually win a Stanley Cup and stop their drought, but will it be this year? Throughout the Auston Matthews Era, I feel like this is the most underhyped season in that tenure, which usually turns results.
Whenever you think one thing in professional sports, the opposite seems to happen, so maybe this is the year the team wins with everyone assuming the worst?
Here are three reasons why the Toronto Maple Leafs will win the Stanley Cup this season.
No. 1: New Head Coach
For the first time since 2019, there is a new head coach in the Leafs dressing room and he doesn't care about what's happened in the past.
When I think of Sheldon Keefe's tenure as head coach, I think of it in a positive light, but I always wish that Keefe came first and Mike Babcock came second.
I think Babcock is one of the biggest pieces of garbage that has ever coached in the NHL, but he is someone who's had success everywhere he's coached (other than Toronto and Columbus). Babcock's menality is best suited for an older team, while Keefe's is better suited for a younger team, so I think if their roles were reversed, Babcock could have gotten more out of the mature squad than the younger team that came in.
Now that Keefe is gone, I think Berube is going to change the locker room and demand repsect immediately. He's a coach that has won a Stanley Cup and someone who played over 1,000 NHL games. Keefe had great experience as a player and coach, but Berube has even more and played with an edge, accumulating over 3,000 penalty minutes in his career.
The new coach-bump is a real thing in hockey and I don't think it's being talked about enough. The same thing can be applied to the New Jersey Devils with Keefe, as I think they're going to be a playoff team next year as well, but Berube's experience will be a difference-maker for Toronto this year.
No. 2: Mitch Marner and John Tavares: Contract Year
There is a real possibility that this is the last season that Mitch Marner and John Tavares are members of the Toronto Maple Leafs and that fire is going to drive them to their best seasons yet.
I know that the Leafs didn't have huge success with Auston Matthews and William Nylander entering their contract year last season, but both players did have their best individual season of their career and the same thing will apply with Tavares and Marner. Last year, Matthews led the NHL with 69 goals, while Nylander registered 98 points for the first time in his career.
Marner and Tavares had a "down-year" for their standards last year, but that's going to change this year, as I would be shocked if Marner doesn't finish with a minimum of 35 goals and 110 points, while Tavares gets back to 80 points himself.
Since they're in a contract year, they need to prove to the organization and the rest of the league that they deserve another monster contract. Marner is coming off a $10.93M deal, while Tavares currrently makes $11M, so if they want to make anything close to what they did, they're going to have a crazy huge year and what better way of getting more money than to add a Stanley Cup to your resume?
I think that the core-four loves playing together, so since they know this could be the last time ever doing so, they're going to deliver in a big way.
No. 3: Trades and Rookies
As much as we want to look at the roster in August and make our predictions for April, this roster should look a lot different when the playoffs start. If it doesn't look different, GM Brad Treliving should be fired the day after the season ends because he has a ton of possibilities of how to improve this roster.
The first way to improve the roster is via trade. Nick Robertson is the team's biggest trade chip right now, but they also should be shopping David Kampf, Ryan Reaves, Calle Jarnkrok and/or Connor Timmins, who are all overpaid. Even if they flipped those players for cap-relief or draft picks, it would be a big win for this roster.
However, the biggest reason this team could have a true advantage is because of their rookies. If Easton Cowan and Fraser Minten can make the roster, their top-nine will be much improved. Not only will it be improved, but they'll have these players on Entry Level Contracts, giving them a huge advantage and ability to make a big splash up-front.
Kampf, Reaves, Janrkrok and Timmins represent roughly $7M of cap-space, which could then be used much more efficiantly (ie. Tyer Bertuzzi replacement). Toronto's top two lines are as good as any other roster, but it beings to falter in thier bottom six, but it doesn't mean they can't get there.
