As someone who covers the Buffalo Sabres day-to-day, the Toronto Maple Leafs' existence in the last four years sounds like a dream. Four seasons in a row the Leafs have made the playoffs, led by elite level talents like Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and more recently John Tavares.
However, with talent and repeated playoff appearances comes expectations for playoff success. Four years in a row, Toronto has found nothing but defeat in Round 1.
The shut down due to COVID-19 has cooled the jets on any normal hockey conversation. One of the biggest stories of the 2019-20 season in the league had been Toronto's struggles that, ultimately, contributed to Mike Babcock being fired as head coach.
At the time of the NHL's shutdown on March 12, Toronto sat in eighth place in the Eastern Conference with 81 points in 70 games. They were on pace to land around 95 points and were in danger of missing out on the playoffs all together. For a team that's under pressure to have postseason success, this past regular season was anything but encouraging for Leafs fans.
Fast forward four months and the Leafs are set to play the Columbus Blue Jackets in the Stanley Cup Qualifying Round in a couple of weeks. The Leafs are sizable favorites to win the series at -160. A stark difference for two teams that finished with the exact same amount of points.
Toronto blows Columbus out of the water with offensive talent up front, but don't count the Blue Jackets out with their advantages on the blue line and in net. The Leafs were one of the worst teams in the league at preventing quality scoring chances, while the Blue Jackets were one of the leagues best. That is represented in each team's performances from their goaltenders.
Columbus ranked fifth in the NHL in save percentage, while Toronto ranked 28th. Is Elvis Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo a top-five goalie duo in the NHL, or is the combination of head coach John Tortorella and defensemen Seth Jones and Zach Werenski just suffocating to opposing offenses?
Should the Blue Jackets pull an upset, like they did last year against the Tampa Bay Lightning, what happens to the Leafs?
Babcock has already been fired. Sheldon Keefe has only had a few months on the job. Can't really blame the coach.
Kyle Dubas has been Toronto's general manager for over two years now. Naturally, you get to the general manager pretty quickly when not meeting expectations, but Dubas is such a bright young mind in the sport. Still only 34-years-old, Dubas is incredibly respected, and it seems crazy that he would be fired.
The alternative scapegoat is the players. A core of Matthews, Marner, Tavares, William Nylander and Morgan Reilly have yet to win anything meaningful together. Not to the fault of any of their own, all four have been dynamite on the ice.
The issues come with the money dedicated to those five players. A whopping $45.49 million cap hit annually goes to that group, more than half of the $81.5 million cap limit for the 2019-20 season and into the 2020-21 season.
This is part of the consequence of signing Tavares when Toronto did. The 29-year-old is incredible and he gives them one of the best 1-2 center combos in the NHL. He also limits the Leafs' ability to fix their issues on the blue line and in net.
So, if Columbus beats Toronto, which Leafs player or players become scapegoated? Matthews and Marner are untouchable, Tavares isn't going to get you any value worth a trade with his contract, and Reilly is, maybe, your only good defenseman.
That leaves Nylander.
A 24-year-old winger making $6.96 million per-year for the next four years that was on his way to his third 60-point season is a very tradable asset that many teams would want. Nylander is a name that often comes up when Sabres fans want to talk about Rasmus Ristolainen trade ideas.
Should the Sabres want to take a stab at Nylander, it's hard to believe Ristolainen or Brandon Montour would be the main piece going back. No team that implements analytics the way the Leafs do will trade such an asset for defensemen that negatively impact their teams almost every time they're on the ice.
Should a shocking scenario arise where Dubas is replaced as general manager for an old school hockey guy, brought in to toughen up the Leafs so that they can win in the playoffs, then maybe a Nylander for Ristolainen/Montour trade can be a discussion.
For the Leafs in general, there's an easy way to avoid the want for a drastic change: Win a playoff series for the first time since Alexander Mogilny, Brian Leetch, and Ron Francis were on your team.