Not with that defense.

Next year signing Matthews & Marner (+16-17M$)... One of Marner or Nylander need to be sacrificed otherwise you will need to rebuilt entirely your defense losing Gardiner & Hainsey!

Toronto is in a great spot this coming season no doubt. The defense is a bit questionable but the offense is a scoring machine. The hard part for fans is knowing next season they are going to have to move someone significant to stay under the cap even if the cap is $81M which I suspect it will be.

That is not a cup contending lineup.

It's this foolish old talk just non factual. Leafs allowed eight more goals against last season than Washington. Now I don't think we will the Cup, but geez, where's your logic.

Defence is not at a high level, however, if you shipped Nylander to bring in an elite defenceman, they would win the cup easy

Notcccc

If Andersen doesn't play out of mind last year, its a different story. FWIW, they were bottom 4 in shots against and thats more statically relevant as it highlights how good Andersen was. Bunch of boys running lost in their own zone. Defensive zone play is under the microscope far more in the playoffs and last year's series against Boston highlights what their D-core truly is.

Not all shots have equal chances of scoring. How far out do they come from? Can the goalie see them coming? Do they get deflected from in front? Did the shooter get infinite time and space to plan and fake out the goalie, or just enough to flip the puck into his catching glove?

I actually think the number of goals a team gives up is a very good indicator of how effective a team's defense is.

There are a lot of recipes for a good team, but adding a #1 center who scores about a point a game in the NHL playoffs to a team that already made the NHL playoffs seems like a really obviously good idea. I don't know whether the Leafs will win the Cup, but this is the first time in my lifetime that they have a pretty good chance, and they should be fun to watch for a long time, either way.

They're the Leafs ... they aren't gonna win the cup in 2019. Stop with the jokes.

Kinda strange that it always Andersen that "played out of his mind" when in factor, McIllerney had a much better GAA. And a gee, how were the Leafs that bad against Boston....it was a seven game series.
Leaf might have lost game seven anyways. But it bone head line match up (no centre on the ice) when Leafs lost a defensive zone face off when tied the scored four, four. At yes, Jake being Jake made two bone head plays later to lead to Bruin goal. Gardiner is not a Leaf in 2019/20.

I like how everyone talks about how bad the defense was against Boston. The offense was also bad too. Nylander and Matthews combining for 2 goals the entire series is another big reason why they didn't win. Their big guys didnt show up. The entire team sucked and Andersen was not good in game 7 either. I would obviously expect them to bounce back and have a much better run next year but the whole team is to blame against Boston other then maybe Marleau, Marner, Dermott, and Kapanen. Those guys actually showed up. Matthews and Nylander both sucked.