The Leafs are probably the NHL’s next contenders and it’s time to start acting as such

The first year is always the oddest one. Not the first year of a rebuild, but the first year that it comes apparent that you have something special to work with.  The year when all the youth that you’ve spent years assembling finally get to mostly work together, and the rest of the league takes notice.

They don’t know you’re knocking on the doorstep yet, but they will. By the end of it, they’ll know that you’re a little while away from making noise. It can’t be around the corner though After all, while you’ve come a long way from this:

You’re still just a middling threat. Right? Well, only if you want to be.

One thing that most of these teams had in common? They were getting their production for pennies on the dollar. This is especially true of the Penguins and Blackhawks (The Kings are the square peg of this comparison, but eventually find their way. Just run with it). Shockingly, adding multiple young, elite forwards that you previously drafted to the other depth guys that you’ve drafted and have managed to survive the draft years will lead to some very fun results. Those Penguins added Malkin and Staal. Those Hawks added Kane and Toews. Los Angeles got their help on the back end; this wasn’t Doughty’s first season, but it was his big boom. Of course, that leaves us with the Leafs, who had five rookies in their top ten scorers.

Future core pieces were hiding in the bottom of the scoring tables of the other three teams as well. In Pittsburgh, Max Talbot barely missed the cutoff for the above table, and Kris Letang got a seven-game taste of the pros after finishing his last QMJHL season. That Blackhawks team included Andrew Ladd, Cam Barker, Dave Bolland, Kris Versteeg, Troy Brouwer, Nicklas Hjalmarsson, and Corey Crawford for stints. The Kings gave brief looks to a handful of others, but still had a few veterans to skim off. The key point here, though, is that the teams now had a chunk of salary wiggle room; moreso if they were willing to play the bonus overage chasing game. Moreover, they had a lot of incentive to improve; their best players would only be cheap for so long.

So they took leaps.

The most glaringly apparent of these pushes comes from the Blackhawks, and that makes sense. The Penguins were still getting out of the bankruptcy woods at this point, and were already also an abundant threat; one that was just unfortunate to face a Cup Favourite (and eventual Eastern Conference Champion) in Ottawa in the first round. Even they still added some middle-lineup support, though, and eventually swung for the fences at the deadline. Los Angeles made their higher-profile moves in a way that minimized how many players would come off their roster, but also focused more on depth.

Chicago’s brazenness was key, though. Fewer top defencemen were hitting the open market once the cap era kicked in; the odds of a Zdeno Chara-level move from one team to another were minuscule. Campbell was clearly the best defenceman on the market and seemed poised to be for a long time. Knowing they were getting a top-end player that would flesh out their core, the Hawks signed him to his massive eight-year, $57 million contract, and decided that any issues that may arise would be addressed later.

Chicago and Pittsburgh took huge leaps, which is impressive given what they had accomplished the year before. Extra depth and improved goaltending from Fleury made all the difference for the Penguins, and while the Hossa move didn’t get them their cup, it got them the closest they had been in nearly two decades. Chicago looked ready to take the league by storm right out of the gate, but were tasked with facing the last truly great gasp of the Detroit Red Wings and, in their first playoff appearance as a group, just weren’t able to keep up. Los Angeles kinda spun their tires, losing to San Jose, but got an idea of where they needed to go while they still could.

Alright, second kick at the can.

The Penguins knew they couldn’t afford Hossa long-term with Crosby coming up for renewal, so they walked when the talks got too rich. But they also knew that this was the last year that Malkin and Staal would be this cheap and that Letang was on the clock too. So they surrounded them with (mostly) short-term support. The Hawks went for it for a second consecutive year and signed Hossa until approximately the apocalypse, and the Kings, knowing that it was now or never, threw down some young core players and cash to basically acquire the mid-late 2000’s Philadelphia Flyers.

Just in time. The Penguins solved their last big issue (coaching) midway through the season and went on a tear under Dan Bylsma, the Hawks achieved all-around dominance and cruised through the year, and the Kings shook off bad luck at just the right time to have one of the craziest playoff runs of our time. They did it while their best young players were still relatively cheap, and could be surrounded by top depth and veteran players to push them over the top while they approached their personal athletic primes.

The people preaching caution will be quick to point out that from here, managing the cap got a lot harder for all three teams. They all had to make tough decisions with to keep themselves within the constraints of the league, and that often involved very good players being moved out.

I know that sounds bad, but it’s an inevitability of all rags to riches teams. No matter what happens with the Leafs, if they take the patient approach or not, they’re going to have players who will ask for more money or opportunity at the end of their deals. They’re going to have to move players, and what this team looks like now is not what it’ll look like even two years from now.

But none of those other three teams had to move away from their young stars. Crosby, Malkin, Letang (from the press box) and Fleury (from the bench) are chasing yet another cup in Pittsburgh. Nearly every other Hawk has been replaceable along the way, but Toews, Kane, and Keith are all still there. Kopitar and Doughty still run Los Angeles.

These teams, in a sense, got to use the winning to their advantage. Support players had the pedigree of a ring to raise their trade value to teams looking to make their own jump, and they were willing to give up picks and prospects to get a piece of the “culture” in their own rooms, beginning a conveyor belt of support development. Veteran UFAs wanted to join the ride and signed discounted short term deals to join these teams. Prospects looking to win from the start while being aware they could get legitimate minutes for a team that needed their lower initial cap hits (looking at you, Artemi Panarin) were more willing to hop on their bandwagons.

In short, getting to victory faster gave all of these teams leverage in manipulating the group outside their top players with efficiency. It created binds at times, but they were manageable because the hockey world wanted to be just like them. Thanks to this, these teams were all able to repeat and stay competitive for quite a few years after their first win. All three teams found their way back to hosting cup parades with the same top players. Chicago’s done so twice, and Pittsburgh may join them in a week.

Which brings us back to the Leafs. The Leafs team that we don’t want to get too carried away with yet. After all, even looking at the other “model franchise”, it still seems weird to think that they could be destined to go down that same, no-speed-limit road.

But it shouldn’t. The Leafs had their share of slumps and misfortune (the shootout, one goal games, and third period leads were all nearly the death of them), but they were one of the best possession teams in the league, the team that spent the most time in the lead in the league besides Washington, and one of the best at moving the puck in and out of dangerous areas at blistering pace. They did it on the backs of three rookies who couldn’t legally drink in 24 road arenas and a supporting cast that was nearly as young. They did it without any significant statistical alarms to set off, and they backed it all up by playing an extremely close series with the regular season’s best team in the league. There is little to no reason to believe that this team isn’t for real.

There’s less reason to believe that this offseason isn’t one to pounce, either.

Contract wise, this is the best position that the Leafs have ever been in the salary cap era. A long list of expiring buried salaries mean that Toronto has $12 million in space remaining with Connor Brown and Zach Hyman being the only two significant contracts left to sign. They’ve got another $10.5 million in theoretical (but not totally clean) money to spend through Long-Term Injured Reserve, should they feel the need to push their bonus luck. The likelihood of a “flat” salary cap means that other teams won’t have the room to upgrade their maxed out rosters, perhaps giving Toronto an advantage in attempted acquisition.

It’s the only time they’ll have it quite this nice, too. Next year comes with some benefit; the full removal of Lupul’s contract, the expiration of Eric Fehr, and the end of Tim Gleason and Jared Cowen’s buyouts, but they’ll also have the extension or replacement of William Nylander, James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak, Leo Komarov, Connor Carrick, and a handful of others to worry about. Add a year, and you have Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Jake Gardiner to worry about.

If there’s a time do to this, it’s right now. The team is on the cusp of being one of the league’s best using solely what they have now, but management has a once-in-an-era amount of flexibility to add to the group and audition what they have to offer to the rest of the league. Rather than worrying about what your top players will make in two years, consider what you’ll get for your third liners when they’re the ones who get priced out. Rather than worrying about losing a fringe prospect in a move, consider the incentive you give to future top ones who might show up from around the world. Rather than worrying about sticking to an arbitrary “X year plan”, recognize the opportunity you have in front of you to win now, while still looking towards a viable future.

Ultimately, developing a model franchise is a marathon, not a sprint. By no means am I saying that the Leafs should short all their future assets to go all-in on next year; that would be insane. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll spend some time on this site brainstorming about what the best plan of action and execution to make the next step is.

But they have to make it. Even a marathoner has to occasionally decide whether it makes sense to take a chance to pass the crowd ahead of them, and if you’re in it to win rather than to merely finish, you’re going to have to make that call at some point. You may as well do it while you have the energy.