The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Edmonton Oilers both had the opportunity to draft a generational player, but only one of the two teams has had playoff success. I’m not only talking about this year’s Cup Final (which starts tonight); since the start of the McDavid era, the Oilers have won seven rounds of playoff hockey while the Maple Leafs still only have one round win to their name with the Core Four. Is there something the Maple Leafs can take from how the Oilers built their team? What about the way they use their role players?
The Inspiration for This Reflection
Earlier this week, I heard a podcast where Kris Versteeg gives his take on why the Oilers have more success in the playoffs than the Maple Leafs. If you listen to the extract on Sportsnet 590’s X account, you’ll get the gist of what he believes, but here is the most meaningful quote:
What are the Oilers’ top guys doing that the Leafs’ top guys don’t do? Do they produce in the playoffs? They dominate. Like you said, in the first period they go out and they score two power-play goals in a big game relieves a bit of the pressure, yes they tighten up in the second period, they know Dallas is going to push. They also start to get their role guys involved after Knoblauch in that Vancouver game played them 29 and 30 minutes in a non-overtime game. So, I think once you start to see a team that really needs their top guys that understand their role guys need to feel important you know exactly what you need to do that’s what helps you win. […] It’s a super risky way to try to win because, if a big guy goes down, who’s going to fill that role? But if you get your role guys understanding, buying in, loving what they are doing, killing the clock essentially some of them. Some of them are just out there to kill the clock. That gives you a chance, that gives you hope. That’s what the Leafs have not had. They do not get their role guys involved, they don’t make them feel important. And then, to cap it all up, their top guys just don’t produce at the level they need to do when you built a team structurally that way.
Versteeg was once part of Toronto’s team, but only for 53 games in the 2010-11 season, long before the Core Four was assembled, and he has never played for the Oilers. I’m not saying his opinion doesn’t have merit; it’s just that he’s in no better position than any other player to analyze the situation. In a gist, he believes the Oilers know how to make their role players feel important to the team and valorize them so they “get with the program,” so to speak. It’s an interesting train of thought, so I decided to hitch another wagon and take a look at it.
What Does the Money Say?
By spending less money on their top-end guys, the Oilers can get better role players and valorize them with higher-value contracts on top of the higher ice time. I did the mathematics using Ryan Foegele, Ryan McLeod, Corey Perry, Mattias Janmark, Adam Henrique, and Connor Brown as Edmonton’s bottom-six or role players, amounting to a $11,923,000 investment. Meanwhile, top guys Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Evander Kane have a $36,750,000 cap hit for 44% of the salary cap.
In Toronto, the bottom six, made up of Pontus Holmberg, Calle Jarnjrok, Connor Dewar, David Kampf, Noah Gregor, and Nicholas Robertson, total $7,671,667. The Maple Leafs’ top forwards total $40,505,616, which is 49% of the salary cap. That’s just for Auston Matthew, William Nylander, John Tavares, and Mitch Marner, so four players to Edmonton’s five.
Related: Toronto Maple Leafs’ Salary & Roster Structures Are Unsustainable
If we wanted to make the exercise as fair as possible, we would have to take five players on the Maple Leafs as well; if we did that, we’d have a total of $46,005,516 for a percentage of 55% of the salary cap.
Worst yet, if we only count established superstar players, we can keep Toronto’s Core Four, which, as we’ve seen, comes up to $40,505,616. We’d have to add up McDavid and Draisaitl for the Oilers, which comes up to an even $21,000,000 and represents “only” 25% of the salary cap.
In the end, the Oilers know that having too many superstars commanding too much money doesn’t work if your remaining funds are only sufficient to use plugs in the rest of the line-up. To me, at least, the Maple Leafs building model is flawed and even more so because their stars tend to vanish in the playoffs. The Oilers, who had a lot of high first-round picks over the year, didn’t keep them all; they moved both Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall, trading the former to the New York Islanders and the latter to the New Jersey Devils.
When Did the Maple Leafs Play Like a Real Team?
Toronto’s first-round series was anything but quiet, with the media soon criticizing Marner’s lack of offensive production and Nylander and Matthews for missing games. The fact is, though, when Matthews had to forfeit Games 5 and 6, the whole line-up shone. Why? Because they couldn’t just sit back thinking, “Bah, Auston will do it.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that Sheldon Keefe spoke to his locker room, telling his players something along the lines of, “Look, guys, Matthews won’t be there. We’re facing elimination. I need you all to chip in here.” If such a speech existed, it worked wonders, but when Matthews returned for Game 7, we were shown that a leopard doesn’t change its spots, and the overreliance on the Core Four returned, with the result we all know.
Versteeg might have been on to something there when he said the role players had to buy in to succeed and needed to feel important to do so. Ice time and salaries in Edmonton tend to show that it’s more than just a feeling; the role players are important. Furthermore, the more ice time they get, the more opportunities you have to rest your superstars and send them out for their next shift full of energy rather than struggling to catch their breath.
If the Maple Leafs manage to break up the Core Four this summer, they should be able to get a bit closer to the Oilers’ team structure. Provided they ask for the right return or use any cap space surplus to go shopping for role players. The ball is in your court, Brad Treliving. Handle the explosive box Kyle Dubas left you with extreme care until you can diffuse the threat.
