Well, that couldn't have gone any better.
The Toronto Maple Leafs finally bottomed out, and for franchise supporters - who wear it like a badge of honor, an understanding of profound disappointment, and never-ceasing impending doom, of leads never too large to not be blown - it was beautiful to watch. Last place. Thirtieth. The best of the worst. They finally did it.
Of timing
It's easy to get philosophical about the Maple Leafs. If God exists - a big if - she or he isn't a fan of Toronto's hockey team; that cannot be disputed. What's also certain is that timing has never been the organization's forte. Until The Great Rebuild.
The Blue Jays made the playoffs in 2015. For three months, all of Toronto - babies, mothers, grandmothers - was drunk on baseball. Hockey, the Maple Leafs, weren't on the radar. Not during training camp, after expectations were placed so low they weren't even truly set. The Leafs were even an afterthought on Opening Night. "Game 5" means the complete and utter wondrous opposite to Blue Jays supporters of what "Game 7" means to Maple Leafs fans.
Baseball magic transitioned almost seamlessly to basketball delight. This season's Toronto Raptors are the greatest Raptors, the best basketball team to ever call Toronto home. In the spring, the Air Canada Centre and the area around it belongs not to the Maple Leafs, but the Raptors.
And what the Maple Leafs have hopefully learned is that Toronto isn't a hockey town, or a baseball, or basketball town. It's all of them. Like any place else, it only wants a winner. And it will wait. Decades. But when that winning team comes back, Toronto will be there. Will love it. Will make you think the SkyDome roof may blow off after Troy Tulowitzki hits a bases-clearing double, or when Marco Estrada triumphantly walks off the mound - again - in a do-or-die game. Whether it's the fall or the spring, whether it's the Blue Jays in the American League Division Series or the Raptors and Wizards in the first round, when the playoffs come to town, Toronto comes alive in a way only a sports team can bring it to life.
The timing of president Brendan Shanahan's great gutting isn't very Maple Leafs-like at all. It's good.
Babcock's Leafs
What's been so soul-crushing about the Maple Leafs of recent years is they made you feel, well, almost nothing at all. Apathy. The Maple Leafs are not good. They lose. That's simply what they do.
Paul Maurice's and Ron Wilson's teams could never make a save. Randy Carlyle was completely maddening behind the bench. The debate over Phil Kessel, which the media helped become unbearably toxic, was so polarizing to the point it became exhausting, a relic of the early Mats Sundin years, the shadow of Wendel Clark seemingly forever looming over an often brainless sports town. Dion Phaneuf's tenure was symbolic of failure, "It was 4-1" the punchline. The poor guy was sent over the boards time and time and time and time again, he never had a chance.
But goodbye, finally, to all of that.
It's almost surreal how quickly the tone around the Maple Leafs changed after Babcock took over. His Maple Leafs played hard. Like Shanahan, Babcock had a plan. With a rag-tag roster, Toronto had the puck. The players bought in, almost immediately. Even P.A. Parenteau was out there giving it everything he had, becoming Toronto's only 20-goal scorer. It couldn't have been hard to move on from what Carlyle was selling, but it was nothing short of striking what Babcock was able to get out of the roster he was given, a roster that continued to be dismantled in his first season on the job, that resembled a minor-league club by April.
It's funny, Toronto finished dead last, but ask a Maple Leafs supporter if she or he thinks Babcock's worth all that money, and the answer's yes, oh yes, at least nine times out of 10.
Everything coming up Maple Leafs
What didn't work?
Phaneuf's gone, the Ottawa Senators trading for the defenseman and his entire contract in order to try to make the playoffs. Lou Lamoriello made Stephane Robidas disappear. Joffrey Lupul may be next to go poof. Jake Gardiner was a treat to watch on the blue line, his 53.3 Corsi For rating easily the highest of his career.
Morgan Rielly's going to sign a long-term extension. Nazem Kadri made fans in Babcock and Lomoriello, and proved he's one of the very, very few players who can be part of the solution in Toronto. The Martin Marincin signing worked out, Frank Corrado and Connor Carrick look like they have futures on the Toronto blue line, and Nikita Soshnikov and Zach Hyman are young forwards to be positive about. Hell, even Garret Sparks played his part. Toronto doesn't finish last if James Reimer isn't traded and Sparks isn't given the crease.
Then there's young William Nylander. Eight of the 19-year-old's 13 points during his audition came at 5-on-5, his Corsi For rating an exceptional 53.9. The Maple Leafs have something in this kid, no doubt. And the last young blonde Swede who came along with a ton of pressure on his shoulders ended up with a statue outside the ACC.
Pain as pleasure
The pain arrived, as prescribed. But it came as part of a plan. This wasn't the Maple Leafs expecting to make the playoffs and finishing 29th, as happened under Brian Burke in 2010. The club didn't have its first-round pick then, of course, which would have been used to draft Tyler Seguin. This time around, Toronto has two first-round picks, and two picks throughout the second, third, and fourth rounds. Twelve picks in total. And that's the difference.
Pain is a big part of being a Maple Leafs supporter. Pain is always expected. But it's a lot easier to stomach when it's clear the pain will lead somewhere. It's okay to be swallowed by the losing abyss that has become the essence of the Edmonton Oilers, as long as there's a plan to get out. As the Oilers have proved, nothing's guaranteed. But the abyss and the hope that comes with it is better than the alternative, better than spinning wheels going nowhere, than no patience, no vision, nothing but pain for the sake of pain.
Let's be honest, the Maple Leafs are probably not going to win the draft lottery. This goes back to timing, and God. But that's not the point. That Toronto put itself in the best position to win it, that it has the highest odds, is.
