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The Official 2026-27 Leafs Season Thread: New Regime, Who Dis?

MyNameIsJonas said:
I think the Bruins are primed to sink, and Buffalo lost 2 fairly important pieces and replaced them with.....nothing
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The east is pretty weak tbh. 4 of the playoffs teams were within 2 points of each other and none of them are actually good. The Pens are probably the best of that bunch but their best players are 900 yrs old. Of the 4 teams that finished at the top of the table, 2 had shit underlying numbers and fantastic...let's just call them "unreliable performance indicators". The other 2 are the SC champs, who will be very good again this year and Tampa, who should be a 105ish point team again.

I wouldn't be surprised if 3-5 teams that missed last season, made the playoffs this season. Us, Florida, Jersey, Washington, even Columbus.
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
I think reasonably the Leafs are in a cluster with Ottawa, Buffalo, and Boston in the Atlantic.

Florida is better, and Tampa gets the benefit of the doubt, but if i squint they could be in the above group too.

Detroit might be the worst team in the East.
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I don't think anyone should be grouping the Leafs in anywhere yet. We're the most unknowable team in the conference imo. There's a reasonable bull argument that BobLarz is a top 5-10 tandem, Auston is fixed, McKenna is an elite/generational #1 overall that scouts got wrongish because of an unlucky 6 weeks to start his season at Penn State, and that Berube hockey was a 20 point anchor around our neck last season. If most, or all of those are true, we're with Carolina.
 
MindzEye said:
I don't think anyone should be grouping the Leafs in anywhere yet. We're the most unknowable team in the conference imo. There's a reasonable bull argument that BobLarz is a top 5-10 tandem, Auston is fixed, McKenna is an elite/generational #1 overall that scouts got wrongish because of an unlucky 6 weeks to start his season at Penn State, and that Berube hockey was a 20 point anchor around our neck last season. If most, or all of those are true, we're with Carolina.
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I admit they are the most difficult team to assess.

I guess im not comfortable putting them with Florida or Detroit.
 
Auston back + Bob isn't a trainwreck + tanev is healthy and vintage tanev + raddysh provides legit top pair production + McKenna is already a 1st liner = leafs are definitely right up there with the top of the league.

The problem is, beyond that, there's not much opportunity for upside (they've stacked the team with 4th liners) and it may not be good enough to compete for a cup unless they go big game hunting at the deadline for another legit elite piece.
 
MindzEye said:
I don't think anyone should be grouping the Leafs in anywhere yet. We're the most unknowable team in the conference imo. There's a reasonable bull argument that BobLarz is a top 5-10 tandem, Auston is fixed, McKenna is an elite/generational #1 overall that scouts got wrongish because of an unlucky 6 weeks to start his season at Penn State, and that Berube hockey was a 20 point anchor around our neck last season. If most, or all of those are true, we're with Carolina.
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Im not convinced the D isn't a tire fire if Tanev is a ghost and Rielly is still terrible despite usage.

That, AM and Bob are my biggest questions.

I think even if i dislike most of the bottom 6 moves, that group kinda has to be better by simply not being in a Berube world
 
Preston said:
Auston back + Bob isn't a trainwreck + tanev is healthy and vintage tanev + raddysh provides legit top pair production + McKenna is already a 1st liner = leafs are definitely right up there with the top of the league.

The problem is, beyond that, there's not much opportunity for upside (they've stacked the team 4th liners) and it may not be good enough to compete for a cup unless they go big game hunting at the deadline for another legit elite piece.
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And all of these things range somewhere within probable/possible.

Its one of the bigger who knows? in hockey at the moment.

That along with how to evaluate a team like San Jose.
 
MindzEye said:
The east is pretty weak tbh. 4 of the playoffs teams were within 2 points of each other and none of them are actually good. The Pens are probably the best of that bunch but their best players are 900 yrs old. Of the 4 teams that finished at the top of the table, 2 had shit underlying numbers and fantastic...let's just call them "unreliable performance indicators". The other 2 are the SC champs, who will be very good again this year and Tampa, who should be a 105ish point team again.

I wouldn't be surprised if 3-5 teams that missed last season, made the playoffs this season. Us, Florida, Jersey, Washington, even Columbus.
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Washington and Florida are locks for me, i think

Columbus is interesting, i think Jet Greeves or whatever his name is, could be the real McCoy
 
#1d is still a gaping hole, but if tanev and raddysh provide the goods, them + McCabe is a very good top 3, maybe their best in the Matthews era.

But getting another elite talent up front that can score or provide offense is gonna be something that needs to happen at some point this year imo. They are extremely talented, but it's all top heavy talent. Too many plugs in the bottom of the roster. Would be nice to add some offensive depth, otherwise we're gonna do that thing again where they get no production from their bottom six forwards and they rely entirely on Auston and Co.
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
Im not convinced the D isn't a tire fire if Tanev is a ghost and Rielly is still terrible despite usage.
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Thing is, in a transition based system, even bad Rielly is going to be fine. This is where I think people are going to make the mistake in over indexing on how players who were mismatched for Berube's system, looked in Berube's system. It's obviously still only pre season, but he's already looked like Morgan Rielly again. We also appear to have stopped this nonsense we've done his entire career in putting a no puck skills babysitter with him.

Tanev is a major question mark for me, but even if he dies, McCabe + OEL is fine as a matchup pair. Not great, but not a disaster either.
 
MindzEye said:
Thing is, in a transition based system, even bad Rielly is going to be fine. This is where I think people are going to make the mistake in over indexing on how players who were mismatched for Berube's system, looked in Berube's system. It's obviously still only pre season, but he's already looked like Morgan Rielly again. We also appear to have stopped this nonsense we've done his entire career in putting a no puck skills babysitter with him.

Tanev is a major question mark for me, but even if he dies, McCabe + OEL is fine as a matchup pair. Not great, but not a disaster either.
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This is probably true, but even McCabe/OEL are at ages where at least a small dip is possible.
 
I sincerely hope if the team plays well TSN offers Berube an analyst spot and he is forced to come up with reasons as to why they are good and Mike Johnson can stare daggers at him
 
Preston said:
#1d is still a gaping hole, but if tanev and raddysh provide the goods, them + McCabe is a very good top 3, maybe their best in the Matthews era.

But getting another elite talent up front that can score or provide offense is gonna be something that needs to happen at some point this year imo. They are extremely talented, but it's all top heavy talent. Too many plugs in the bottom of the roster. Would be nice to add some offensive depth, otherwise we're gonna do that thing again where they get no production from their bottom six forwards and they rely entirely on Auston and Co.
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Sleeping on Rielly. I think he’ll be 60-70 point Rielly this year.
 
MindzEye said:
once upon a time, yeah.
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I swear, I’m not exaggerating, but every game under Biff, I was constantly like, what is going on here, what are they doing, how can great players forget how to play? It was as traumatic as something could be on a sports level because not only did they suck ass, but the product was completely devoid of entertainment. There was legitimately nothing fun about watching a Leafs game last year.
 
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