Insider Likens This Year's Maple Leafs to a Recent Stanley Cup Champion in the West
A prominent NHL insider has pinpointed why he believes the Maple Leafs are in a prime position to succeed this year, akin to the Los Angeles Kings in the 2010s.
It has been an age old question since the on-set of the Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner era; when will the Toronto Maple Leafs finally make that jump and get over the hump in the playoffs, snapping their longstanding Stanley Cup drought?
We always hear "this is the year" and "this team is different". We're hearing it once again, but this time, there seems to actually be some validity behind it, because this team does, in fact, appear to be different.
Craig Berube has been everything the Maple Leafs and the fan base were hoping for when he was hired to replace Sheldon Keefe this past summer.
His style of coaching is a complete 180 of what the Leafs were like under Keefe over the past 5 seasons and it's starting to reflect in their games, their placement in the standings, and even their attitude on a day-to-day basis, according to NHL insider David Pagnotta.
Invited as a guest on The Leafs Nation's "Leafs Morning Take" podcast, Pagnotta was asked by host Nick Alberga what differences he sees in the Atlantic Division-leading Leafs this season, and the trusted insider brought up several strong points that seem to indicate a much different mindset in Toronto to the one we've seen in years past.
It is a little looser, it is more of a comfortable environment from the looks of things, but that's brought in by some of the personalities [that have come in]. These guys can be loose, but when it's time to get to business, they know how to be professional too, and that's what Berube has instilled in the room from the get-go. You're going to be harder to play against, but you're going to play with a professional mentality, and yes, you can go out there and have fun, but you can do so in a certain way..."
The locker room atmosphere and looseness of the players is extremely important and is generally a massive part of the DNA of a championship team like the Los Angeles Kings in the early 2010s when they won Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014. It seems like the Leafs share that quality and then some.
The camaraderie is ever-present, players are expressive in a way that doesn't deteriorate their team-play and they're loose and having fun -- and quite honestly, that's all you can ask for from a team that has dealt with some disappointing defeats in one of the biggest markets in North American sports for decades.
Berube has done a fantastic job behind the bench in his first year, but the true test will come in the spring when they play meaningful playoff hockey. If this team is as different as they appear to be, we may be watching Leafs hockey well into the late spring, and hopefully into June as well.
