TORONTO — If you saw Jake Muzzin’s bushy brown beard and heard many of the questions thrown at the Toronto Maple Leafs Wednesday morning, you could easily have mistaken that team for one in the middle of a playoff run.
As last season’s 60-goal scorer Auston Matthews put it, “Everybody’s thinking: playoffs, playoffs.”
For those keeping count, this phase of the 2022-23 NHL season is more than 200 days away.
“I understand what it is, all this kind of talk and stuff, and rightly so,” added last season’s Hart Trophy winner Matthews, “but at the same time we can’t fast forward to the future.”
No, we can’t, but nonetheless, post-season success was a talking point at Toronto’s Media Day at the Ford Performance Center on Wednesday, the last day before the opening of the training camp. It was the expected chatter about a team that’s pretty much the same as last year, a team that has set franchise records for regular-season wins and points but once again exited the playoffs in the first round and in seven The reigning two-time Stanley Cup champion from Tampa Bay lost games.
Mitch Marner was seven years old when this franchise last won a playoff series in 2004. Hailing from the Toronto area, he’s getting all the anticipation but trying to focus on the days and weeks ahead. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot about it, but especially from me,” Marner said. “You have to take it day by day.”
On Thursday, the Leafs will open training camp with two new goalies, Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov, and a couple of roster spots up for grabs, but with a core they’ve kept to try and make a real run.
“We’re very excited about the upcoming season,” said GM Kyle Dubas, who wore a blue team zip and was seated at a conference table in a room that had the feel and comfortable leather seats of a VIP movie theater. Meanwhile, Leafs players were on the ice taking photos and videos.
“This is another chance for us to change history,” added Dubas. “I know nobody wants to hear what we have to say, they want to see what we do – see action. And I know a lot of people want to say it has to come in the playoffs, which of course we agree with. We have to get better. We have to win at this time, we are capable of it.”
Dubas is in the final season of a five-year deal as the team’s general manager and there have been plenty of questions on that too, which he says he will address at the end of the season. He noted that he “will not be distracted.” This team is built on accountability, Dubas added, and “I think I need to be held accountable the most.”
The most responsible guy has the goal on the table for this season, and it’s not just about getting through the first round.
“Our goal is to win the Stanley Cup,” said Dubas. “So that’s what we set out to do today and nobody who works at this facility thinks about anything less than that and what the impact will or will not be.”
This goal is of course the priority for every member of this organization. “That’s what makes it great, that’s the process and the journey to get here,” said Captain John Tavares. “Hopefully we have a chance to break through.”
“We’ve proven over the last few years that we can put down good runs and play really good hockey over a period of time and compete with the best teams in the league,” added defenseman Morgan Rielly. “We did that for long stretches during the regular season; we haven’t been able to do that in the playoffs for a long time. So it’s up to us to get to that point.”
Rielly says that over the summer he’s been able to stop thinking about last season’s disappointment on a daily basis, but that it comes back every now and then. “I think once you get back on the rink and back to your teammates, your friends and the boys, you kind of face that again and start talking about it,” he said. “It comes and goes throughout the season and on a day like today you get asked a few questions and then you think about it again.”
For Muzzin, it’s a comfort to still have that core group together after that disappointment a season ago. “When there are familiar faces and you’ve gone through the fight together, it motivates you and your group to come out the other end as well,” he said. “We know we have a good team, we have a good chance and for me personally you don’t always get that.”
Preparation for the coming season starts in earnest tomorrow, on the first day of the training camp. But this team knows they will be judged on what happens 200+ days from now.
As Muzzin put it, “It’s time to push hard and get over the hill.”
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