{"id":914102,"date":"2026-09-29T13:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T13:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914102\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T13:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T13:20:09","slug":"vibes-are-high-why-these-maple-leafs-should-be-fun-and-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914102\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Vibes are high’: Why these Maple Leafs should be fun \u2014 and better"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Training-camp rust was still clinging to the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>\u2019 skates as Auston Matthews<\/a> found himself fielding a long-view question about lottery prize Gavin McKenna<\/a>, an 18-year-old of tantalizing potential and zero professional games played.<\/p>\n

Matthews, busy rewriting the 109-year-old franchise\u2019s record book before his 30th birthday, was asked if Toronto\u2019s next No. 1\u2013overall draftee is destined to become the face of the franchise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will the Maple Leafs one day be McKenna\u2019s team?<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely. I think that time will eventually come,\u201d replied Matthews. Then the captain flashed that sardonic smile, the one that wants to pump the brakes on a reporter\u2019s premise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s looking a little bit into the future, as you guys love to do. But he\u2019s got a great head on his shoulders. He\u2019s extremely humble, confident in himself. He\u2019s going to continue to learn, continue to grow and get better each and every day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, McKenna is something special. Fast and smart. Hands of David Blaine. Feet of Fred Astaire. The Maple Leafs plumbed great luck when they were down on theirs, again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Matthews has lived through all this anticipation and hype. And he wants to send a clear message to McKenna, his teammates, and all you fans and critics who will watch with great interest as the tale of the 2026-27 Toronto Maple Leafs is written.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Channel your power of curiosity.<\/p>\n

Because, for the first time in a long time, the regular season means something in these parts. So many things look and feel different around what Lightning coach Jon Cooper memorably called \u201cthe same cast of characters.\u201d Finally. Joyfully.<\/p>\n

For too many Septembers, Matthews, Morgan Rielly, William Nylander, John Tavares, and the high-expectations Leafs would reconvene after post-season disaster. Another round of heartbreak and consensus underperformance when it really matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No one hoists the Stanley Cup in November, so those camps felt like the beginning of a six-month slog of dress rehearsals before the real show began.<\/p>\n

But what was once the NHL\u2019s longest active playoff streak (nine years) exploded to shambles in the great tire fire of 2025-26. Personnel was gutted from the front office, the bench, and virtually every other department on the ol\u2019 org chart. A couple goalies got traded. Eleven(!) new roster players were recruited.<\/p>\n

Lightened baggage and cleaner slates.<\/p>\n

\u201cVibes are high,\u201d Rielly enthuses.<\/p>\n

This is what you get when you freefall from top five to bottom five and get (accurately) labelled as the most disappointing team in hockey. When your defence is porous and your culture smells putrid. When the sum is so much less than the parts, it\u2019s time to find a whole new equation.<\/p>\n

Alas, from haplessness springs hope. Can\u2019t get any worse, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d says Jake McCabe, a rare Leaf who played both excellent and healthy last season. Before getting traded north in 2022, the veteran spent nine years toiling for crummy teams in Buffalo and Chicago. He is in a reflective mood. \u201cYou know, it took me 500 games of missing the playoffs in my career \u2014 until I got here (and made them). So, last year was a reminder of not taking things for granted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAuston and Mo and John and Will, it\u2019s expected to make the playoffs \u2014 which is how it should be. But you can\u2019t take it for granted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To a man, the Leafs leadership group is quick to credit new GM John Chayka\u2019s off-season aggression.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McKenna is the best kind of fluke, the quality of top-six, playmaking winger that rarely hits the open market and that executives can seldom afford to trade for.<\/p>\n

In comes Darren Raddysh, the best offensive defenceman available in free agency and a 22-goal, 70-point right-shot point bomb that could pound the Leafs power-play back to elite.<\/p>\n

Top-six scoring dynamo Kirill Marchenko<\/a>, the Blue Jackets\u2019 leading goal-getter three years running, is an upgrade in speed and (for one season only) cap hit from power forward Matthew Knies. He has the potential to spark a debate and create a highlight every time he hops the boards.<\/p>\n

Jack Roslovic is an intriguing flyer, what with his history of chemistry bursts alongside the elite and longstanding friendship with Matthews. He\u2019s also here after things didn\u2019t work out with his previous five teams.<\/p>\n

We see a remodelled, veteran bottom-six (Nick Paul, Colton Sissons, Brandon Duhaime, Teddy Blueger, Zack McEwen) with multiple centre options and multiple pre-season fighting majors.<\/p>\n

And, looky here, a Hall of Fame\u2013bound, two-time Cup-winning goaltender who routinely stays healthy enough for a real starter\u2019s workload. Sergei Bobrovsky, 38, ain\u2019t young. But for the first time in four summers, he\u2019s had a five-plus months to rest and train. If only one Atlantic power bounces back to contender status, Bobrovsky wants it to be his new one.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s been all the way and won it,\u201d Nylander says. \u201cSo, that\u2019s something that you want to bring here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone we\u2019ve seen a lot of over the years, and someone that’s stolen games, frankly, and been the best part of that team,\u201d McCabe adds of the ex-Panther.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, just a ton of great pieces that we\u2019ve added, a lot of great people that we\u2019ve added. These last two weeks have been kind of seamless with these new guys, and I hope they feel the same, because it’s an exciting group. Love the optimism.\u201d<\/p>\n

A strong source of that optimism when the puck drops against divisional favourite Montreal Tuesday won\u2019t be in uniform.<\/p>\n

Jim Hiller, Chayka\u2019s surprise choice for coach, envisions a swarming possession attack that frees his blue-chip forwards to flex their creative muscle and props Rielly and Raddysh in position to push offence. Hiller has been light on criticism, but that\u2019s easy to do when you haven\u2019t lost a game yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery positive,\u201d says Chris Tanev<\/a>, one of several healthy and important bounce-back candidates on the roster. \u201cNot a ton of yelling or screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bag skates and punishing battle drills have been supplanted by rush offence and diligent backtracking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be a fast, hard-skating team,\u201d declares Matthews, who looks up to speed for a guy coming off knee surgery and two years of wonky-backitis.<\/p>\n

The Maple Leafs \u2014 aging and against it; refreshed and eager to rebound \u2014 don\u2019t want to dwell on the past. Nor do they wish to gaze into their McKenna-led future.<\/p>\n

They are here and now, staring at portals to two divergent multiverses. This season is their sliding-doors moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Do enough of the piling question marks \u2014 a GM and coach hired among raised eyebrows; a superstar whose 69-goal best self is drifting to the rearview; a past-prime D corps that disappointed; a marquee defenceman with one great year, and another whom they tried to trade; a goalie they\u2019re paying till age 40; a phenom who will require patience and growth \u2014 result in affirmative answers? Will they rally back to relevance?<\/p>\n

Or does health and age and unfamiliarity and a deep division and a risky, run-and-gun play style undo Hiller and Chayka\u2019s best laid plans?\u00a0<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s the case, Matthews (UFA 2028) may be handing the mantle to McKenna sooner than anyone in this town wants him to.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s a problem for tomorrow\u2019s Maple Leafs, if it becomes one at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Leafs still have a chance to jump through the sunnier multiverse, one with a 50-goal sniper, the best setup man since the last one ducked out, and the true No. 1 goalie and power-play quarterback they\u2019ve been seeking for years.<\/p>\n

Our only guarantee: This edition of the team will be the most fun and fascinating since \u2026 well, since Matthews was about McKenna\u2019s age.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is exciting when you bring in some new faces,\u201d Matthews says. \u201cThere is always a level of excitement when there is change, and we have experienced quite a bit of it this year. But I think it has been a lot of good change.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody seems excited, on the same page, and ready to get going and hit the ground running.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t fret the finish line just yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Take one step at a time. Enjoy the race.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a minute since Leafs Nation could do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Training-camp rust was still clinging to the Toronto Maple Leafs\u2019 skates as Auston Matthews found himself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-914102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}