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The calendar flips to September on Saturday, which is the end of the summer, but more importantly marks the opening of training camps and the return of the Toronto Maple Leafs to the ice.
While questions about the team captaincy and when restricted free agent William Nylander will be signed are unanswered, others such as how good the Leafs will be are up for debate.
This week, Sportsnet revealed their top 100 NHL players prior to the start of the 2018–19 season and Toronto had five players ranked.
Newly acquired center John Tavares was 12th on the list, behind Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Victor Hedman, Nathan MacKinnon, Erik Karlsson, Anze Kopitar, Alex Ovechkin, Drew Doughty, Nikita Kucherov and Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall.
Auston Matthews was ranked 16th and eighth among centers after winning the Calder Trophy with 40 goals and tallying 34 goals in 62 games in his sophomore season. Leafs leading scorer Mitch Marner was 54th, after scoring 69 points in his second year and leading Toronto in playoff scoring.
.@sportingnewsca John Tavares flanked by Brendan Shanahan and Kyle Dubas. #Leafs #TMLTalk pic.twitter.com/yi8Prh3bRS
— Michael Augello (@MikeInBuffalo) July 1, 2018
Goaltender Frederik Andersen (ranked 67th) was ninth among goaltenders (behind Sergey Bobrovsky, Braden Holtby, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Carey Price, Marc-Andre Fleury, Pekka Rinne, Jonathan Quick and Connor Hellbuyck) and defenseman Morgan Rielly was listed 85th (just behind veteran Shea Weber and ahead of Nashville’s Ryan Ellis).
While the list is subjective, players on the Toronto roster who surprisingly did not make the cut are Patrick Marleau (who scored over 20 goals for the 15th time last season), two-time 30+ goal scoring center Nazem Kadri and Nylander, who registered over 60 points for the second straight season.
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