Matthews, Sundin headline Maple Leafs’ quarter century team

To the surprise of nobody, the first team’s forwards were rounded out by Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Mats Sundin up front. You could make an argument for those players being the top-three Leafs forwards of all time regardless, so it’s no shock that they’re viewed as the best since 2000.

Matthews is a top-5 player in the NHL, combining 69-goal ability with Selke-level defence. Marner has the third-highest point-per-game rating in Leafs history, behind Matthews and Doug Gilmour, and also has Selke-level defensive ability to his game. Sundin may not have been on the same level offensively or defensively as those two, but he was the face of the franchise in the early 2000s and a huge part of the last time this team went on meaningful playoff runs. No complaints here.

On defence, you’ve got Tomas Kaberle and Morgan Rielly. Kaberle spent the first ten years of the decade with the Maple Leafs and was arguably the team’s truest power-play quarterback during that time. Although his career high in points wasn’t as much as Rielly’s, with 67 points in 2005-06, the consistency he brought to the table made him a reliable offensive option from the blueline from the late-90s until he was eventually traded to the 2011-Cup-winning Boston Bruins.

Rielly could be considered the modern-day Kaberle in a sense. He’s been their most reliable offensive option from the back end since he entered the league, and he’s displayed the ability to elevate his game in the playoffs, with four goals and 12 points in 11 games when they went to the second round in 2022-23. His only knock is the consistency – he has off-years every now and then, including this season, with only 18 points in 40 games so far, which makes it harder to forgive his defensive mistakes. Still, you won’t find a player who loves being a Maple Leaf more, and a Leafs team without him is hard to imagine at this point.

In net, as you would expect, it’s pretty bare bones. And that’s not a knock on Ed Belfour or Curtis Joseph at all, but neither player spent more than three seasons with the Leafs, which goes to show how dire things have been between the pipes over the past quarter-decade. Belfour came out victorious over CuJo for the first team, with his best season coming in 2002-03 when he had a record of 37-20-5 complemented by a 2.26 GAA (goals-against-average) and a .922 save percentage (.922).

Shifting our focus to the second team, you’ve got another two-present-one-past ratio with William Nylander, John Tavares, and Phil Kessel rounding out the forwards.

Nylander has grown at an astronomical pace over the past few seasons and has certainly exceeded what many expected him to be when he was drafted. He scored 40 goals for the second year in a row last season and tallied a career-high of 96 points, and he’s on track to hit the 40-goal mark for the third time this season, with 23 through 40 games so far. He inked an eight-year extension with the team about a year ago, showing the fans that he was committed to winning in Toronto.

Tavares signed a seven-year contract with the Maple Leafs in the summer of 2018, a move that rattles Long Island to this day, and although hindsight seems to creep in whenever the Leafs bow out of the playoffs early, the Tavares signing was a massive moment for the Maple Leafs in terms of showing that the team could in fact attract top free agents again. Signing a second number-one centre long-term, and one who hailed from Toronto, was a big moment for the franchise when it happened, and he’s remained a consistent contributor since then. At age 33, he has 19 goals and 39 points in 39 games, seemingly finding a new gear since handing off the captaincy to Matthews.

Kessel’s time in Toronto was riddled with controversy, but none to his fault. He was acquired for picks and prospects at a time when the Leafs really had no business trading said assets, and despite being an all-offence goal-scoring winger with no real number-one centre, Kessel was instantly expected to carry the team offensively and get them back to the playoffs. His career high of 82 points came in 2011-12, but he always found himself under the microscope in a negative light, being touted as ‘uncoachable’ and somebody you couldn’t win with. He responded to that by winning two Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins and one with the Vegas Golden Knights after being traded.

Moving to the second team’s back end, talk about scapegoats. We’ve got Bryan McCabe and Dion Phaneuf, so no other defencemen from the current iteration. McCabe had his moments offensively but had some moments defensively that didn’t sit well with fans. Phaneuf, on the other hand, took an insane amount of heat during his time here, mostly due to his captaincy and a seven-year contract worth $7 million annually that he signed, but he was an entertaining defenceman who threw thunderous hits and had a slap shot that the Leafs haven’t seen from the back end in a long time.

In net, you’ve got Curtis Joseph, who was steady as a rock through his four seasons in Toronto. His best season came in 2000-01, in the form of a record of 33-27-8 backed up by a GAA of 2.39 and a SV% of .915. Those kinds of numbers paired with a record that’s below .500 are more of an indictment of how much he was part of that team’s best days.

Overall, the only change I’d consider is CuJo on the first team over Belfour. The latter’s best seasons were better than any of the former’s, but he also had one terrible year in net and wasn’t with the Leafs for as long as CuJo. Otherwise, it’s hard to argue any of the picks that were here, and no major names come to mind in terms of snubs.