About Toronto Maple Leafs
The franchise was founded in 1917 and was known as the Toronto Arenas, after two years the team was renamed to Toronto St. Patrick to eventually settle on Toronto Maple Leafs in 1927.
They won at least one championship under each of the team’s names and in total it gave them 13, second to their historical rival the Canadiens. Unfortunately they are the current holder of the longest drought between championships with their being 48 years now.
The Maple Leafs were on of the Original Six league members and the franchise is estimated to be the most valuable NHL franchise and the only NHL team to be in top 50 of sports teams rankings by Forbes.
The franchise has been recently going through one of their worst periods in history as they recorded only one playoff appearance in last ten seasons something that had never happened to the team before.
They are placed in Atlantic Division in Eastern Conference after the league realigned in 2013, their colours are blue and white and their official mascot is well travelled bear that goes by name Carlton the Bear and who is known by occasional road trips with the team.
The head coach is Mike Babcock who belongs to Triple Gold Club after leading the Red Wings to Stanley Cup, team Canada to Gold medals in World Championships and Olympic Games twice.
The team hopes that the goaltending duties will permanently become James Reiner’s job as he is very talented and skilled but he is also injury prone and had had problems with keeping up a high level of play after rehabilitations. In the mean time they can also rely on services of Stanley Cup winner Jonathan Vernier who joined them from the Kings who he won the title with.
The captain’s responsibilities belong to Dion Phaneuf, a well-rounded defenceman who has played in the NHL for ten seasons now and has played foir the Maple Leafs since 2010 when he was traded there from the Flames. He was named to First Team All-Star in 2007-08, he went to three NHL All Star Games. He remains popular amongst the fans and offers a steady presence in the team.
More explosions is expected from center Tyler Bozak and forward Leo Komarov. Bozak played for the franchise since 2009-10 and since then he has been working hard at improving his craftsmanship.
Komarov became the first Estonian born player in the NHL when he made his start with the franchise in 2013-14 and is hoping to make more impact on offence within the team.
The longest drought without a championship has to eventually fall. One might only hope that the franchise started putting right pieces to the puzzles that lead to the Stanley Cup Finals.
