Out on a limb with the Leafs

This could be the year Toronto wins its first Stanley Cup since Sgt. Pepper. Really. Well, theoretically.

Matthew Knies

Before Game 7 of the 1993 Campbell Conference Finals in Toronto, Wayne Gretzky hopped into a taxi at his hotel. The city was abuzz over the Maple Leafs’ proximity to the Stanley Cup Final, because the Montreal Canadiens were waiting there. No one seemed to grasp that Gretzky and the Los Angeles Kings were just as close.

The driver somehow was oblivious to Canada’s most familiar face. On the way to Maple Leaf Gardens, he groaned about the Leafs’ second-round victory over St. Louis and the rowdy celebration it had triggered. Now, alas, he was going to have to deal with the same thing, this evening. He would get a dinner break but would have to be back at work at 7 p.m.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Gretzky told him as the cab neared the arena.

“Why not?”

“Because,” Gretzky said triumphantly, “I go to work at 7:30.”

What a piece of work it was. Gretzky had a hat trick, the Kings won, 5-4 and earned a beer shower from the surly patrons, and Toronto’s Stanley Cup drought had reached 16 years.

It hasn’t rained since.

The Maple Leafs got to the conference final twice more. In 1999 they ran into Buffalo and the immovable Dominik Hasek, and lost in five games. In 2002 they played Carolina and scored six goals in six games, in the series after Alexander Mogilny had rescued the Leafs by winning Game 6 in Ottawa and setting up a Game 7 shutout.

But from 2006 through 2016 the Leafs only visited the postseason once. Then they made Mike Babcock the highest-paid coach in NHL history. He barely made it through four years and didn’t win a playoff series. Sheldon Keefe took over and the Leafs managed to beat Tampa Bay in the first round, but were mashed by Florida in the next. He was jettisoned last season after an overtime Game 7 loss to Boston.

As the losses mounted, the specter of the Maple Leafs grew. They are the most valuable franchise in hockey. They are the most beloved, at least in Canada, and the most reviled. Every waiver claim and every empty-net goal is examined for flaws like a diamond.

Toronto’s locker rooms are routinely packed with reporters and cameramen no matter the opponent or the day. Players on teams in less-obsessed areas know the mania better than anyone. Whenever the Anaheim Ducks would get to the playoffs and a media squad would outnumber the usual half-dozen, the call went out from all corners: “What the hell is this, Toronto?”

Justin Bieber, Keanu Reaves and Jim Carrey lead the Leafs’ fandom. Mike Myers slipped a fake news ticker item — “Leafs Win Stanley Cup” — into one of his Austin Powers films. Joni Mitchell had a Leafs’ reference in “Raised On Robbery,” and The Tragically Hip, Canada’s most beloved rock band, lit up every concert with “Fifty Mission Cap,” a tribute to Bill Barilko, who scored the Cup-winning goal in 1951 and then disappeared in a plane crash that summer. They found Barilko’s body in 1962, the next year that the Leafs won.

The 1967 Leafs were the last Cup holders, upsetting Montreal in six games with goalies Johnny Bowers and Terry Sawchuk. They survived a 10-game losing streak but after coach Punch Imlach, whom they despised, missed time with an illness, they won seven of 10 and got into the playoffs.

How long ago? The NHL had six teams then. Bobby Orr was a rookie. And the Beatles came out with “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band,” which included the whimsical ditty “When I’m 64,” which would be the length of the Leafs’ famine if it persists until 2031.

That brings us to the Stanley Cup playoffs that begin Sunday. The Leafs have won their division. For the third time in four seasons they have won more than 50 games (54). And if you mention to any Leafs fan that the team is on the verge of the rapture, you will get two responses: “Come on, we’re not falling for that,” or “Sure.” Sometimes from the same person.

After an extensive cognitive exam, your correspondent still maintains that this is indeed the year. The Leafs have everything they need to do this. Let us count the reasons.

— Nothing is impossible. We’ve seen the Red Sox win in 2004, the Cubs win in 2016, and Rory McIlroy win the Masters last weekend. The St. Louis Blues won their first Cup ever in 2019, and they were coached by Craig Berube, who coaches these Leafs.

— Goaltending. Joseph Woll had been groomed for the job. If the Leafs had known he would go 27-14-1 with a .903 save percentage they would have celebrated. That’s what Woll did, yet he has been passed by Anthony Stolarz, who is on his fifth team and had never started 33 games before. Stolarz led the NHl with a .926 percentage. A fluke? Well, as the backup in Florida last year he was at .925. That also led the league. Beyond that, Stolarz and Woll have stopped 93.1 percent of 5-on-5 chances, second only to Winnipeg.

Sure, neither Stolarz nor Woll has faced these lights, but Leafs’ fans will take their chances after they’ve watched Ilya Samsonov, James Reimer, Jack Campbell, Jonathan Bernier and Freddie Andersen get outgoaltended somewhere along the way. Only 7.9 percent of the “high-danger” scoring chances against the Leafs have turned into goals. That’s the sixth-best figure in the league.

— Competition. The first-round opponent is Ottawa, which takes care of the preparedness factor right there. The thought of losing to a provincial rival is a nightmare that no Leaf fan or, more important, player will abide. Sure, it could happen, but the usual boogeymen from Boston didn’t make the cut. Florida and Tampa Bay are always fearsome, but now they’re playing each other in the first round, an orthopedist’s delight. Washington had the best record in the East and Carolina is a constant factor, but the path is lighter than it’s ever been for the Leafs.

— Defense. The Leafs have given up 136 goals in 5-on-5 situations, best figure in the East (behind only Winnipeg and Los Angeles). They scored 31 goals and gave up 19 on those situations when Chris Tanev and Jake McCabe were together. Tanev is a warhorse who had a career-high 129 blocks and toughened up the Leafs considerably, as has Brandon Carlo, a deadline acquisition from Boston. They still have Morgan Rielly to jump into plays.

— Depth. Matthew Knies was supposed to contribute. At times he’s been dominant. He has a 19.1 shooting percentage, highest on the Leafs, and he has 29 goals and 29 assists. He’s also 6-foot-3 and 217, with a big personality and a willingness to go to the corners and the crease, the patches where the bruises grow. And, like Auston Matthews, he came from the hockey hotbed of Phoenix, as a proud graduate of Sandra Day O’Connor High School. “He’s been a special surprise,” said Berube.

Bobby McMann also has 20 goals. This has helped Toronto improve itself at even-strength, but mostly it has lightened the load on the Core Four, a group that sometimes has struggled to carry seven million metro citizens on its shoulders.

— Core Four. That’s Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and John Tavares, and they know they can walk with legends if they get it done this time. Marner, who had the big assist in Canada’s Four Nations win, has 102 points, Nylander 45 goals, Matthews 33 goals in 67 games and Tavares 38 goals at age 34. All are point-a-game players except Tavares, who had 74 in 75 games. They’ve also combined for 40 power play goals. The fact that Marner and Tavares are headed for the free-agent market also boosts the urgency.

And, yes, there’s urgency when you haven’t won a Cup since Gordon Lightfoot performed the Canadian Railroad Trilogy on CBC. Lightfoot, who died in 2023, was another crazed Leafs fan. The club made him an honorary captain in 1991-92. As an up-and-comer, Lightfoot was singing in a downtown bar when he noticed he couldn’t compete with the Leafs’ game on TV. So he hung up his guitar and went to the bar like everyone else.

There’s one good thing about generational stretches between championships. They give everyone a story. Like the Cubs fans who visited their grandfathers’ graves the day after they won, Leafs fans have innumerable connections. Now, if someone will just plug them in. The guy who wears the Leafs’ jersey to the games, with “Still Waiting 67” on the back, would like to get it cleaned, preferably during a hard, glorious rain.