Toronto Maple Leafs 2023-2024 Season and offseason | Teen Ink

Toronto Maple Leafs 2023-2024 Season and offseason

June 14, 2024
By brodyb3269392 BRONZE, New Jersey, New Jersey
brodyb3269392 BRONZE, New Jersey, New Jersey
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments


How did the Toronto Maple Leafs season go? Many fans were upset with how the season went, so the Toronto Maple Leafs made some big additions to the team, including Tyler Bertuzzi and Max Domi, who played a big part in the season. The Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews had a historical season scoring 69 goals with 107 points. In the first 2 games of the season, he had a hat trick. The Leafs had an amazing offense. Auston Matthews won the All-Star Game MVP and the Maurice Richard trophy (Most Goals in a single season). William Nylander also had a great season having 98 points and being an all-star. The Leafs had 4 all-stars: Auston Matthews, Morgan Rielly, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner. 

The Leafs had a huge problem with goaltending at the beginning of the season and went as far as having their third-string goalie as a daily starter. Ilya Samsonov was their number 1 goalie. Samsonov was off to a terrible start, he was  5-2-6 and had a 3.94 goals-against average with a .862 save percentage. The Leafs then went and sent him to the waivers. Then it was up to their second goalie who came in and filled up the spot perfectly. Joseph Woll was off to a good start but then got injured leaving the Leafs to be using their third-string goalie, they also brought up their rookie goalie from the Toronto Marlies who didn't see any playing time for the Leafs. Once Samsonov came back from waivers he played a huge part for the Leafs having a .939% save percentage and a 1.48 goals-against average. When the trade deadline was coming up the Leafs had a choice to trade Nylander or give him an extension and they chose to give him an 8-year 92 million dollar contract. The Toronto Maple Leafs also had a problem that they needed to improve, they required defense. Even though they had an all-star defender it still needed work. They made two trades during the deadline to get Joel Edmundson and Illya Lyubushkin who are good defenders when it comes to blocking and playing defense aspects of the game, and they will both play a big part in the playoffs.

 The Toronto Maple Leafs had a solid season and ended third in the Atlantic Division,  clinching them a playoff spot against the number 2 team in the Atlantic Division Boston Bruins. They go on to face the Boston Bruins in the playoffs and are coming into game 4 of the series on Saturday 4/27 as they are down 2-1 and they hope to beat them as they are 0-8 against them in their last 8 playoff series.  Auston Matthews missed games 5 and 6 with an illness. That doesn't matter because the Leafs won the next two, to tie the playoff series against the Bruins at 3-3, they play Game 7 in a win-or-go-home match Saturday night May 4th. They went on and lost in overtime. It was a close game the whole time. David Pasternak scored the winning goal, one of the players dumped the puck and Pasternak got past Marner and scored the goal. Fans blamed Marner because he just went by him instead of playing easy defense.

 As Mitch Marner's contract ends after next season, fans don't see the Maple Leafs resigning him as he would be too much to cost. The Toronto Maple Leafs only have $23 million cap space and will need to sign more players in the offseason so it would be a smart move to trade Marner.  The Leafs have Bertuzzi and Domi who are going to be free agents.  They would be a good duo to keep for next season. There will be many good pickups for the Maple Leafs like Brandon Montour, a defenceman for the Florida Panthers who had shoulder surgery last season and came back and had 33 points in 66 games. The year before he had 73 points in 80 games.  

On May 9, 2024, The Toronto Maple Leafs fired their head coach Sheldon Keefe many fans were happy with this decision as the many playoff struggles they had and the game-time decisions Keefe had like putting the wrong players during a penalty kill, just having bad plays, etc. On May 21, 2024, The Maple Leafs hired Craig Burbee who used to coach the St. Louis Blues and won a Stanley Cup in 2019. Later on, Sheldon Keefe was then hired by the New Jersey Devils.

Overall, The Toronto Maple Leafs had a good season solving their problems during the regular season, but they never can get through the playoffs struggling constantly, and the Leafs hope Craig Burbee can fix that problem.



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