I think you are wrong. This Blackhawks teams did not have the traditional depth at forward that the Leafs have and have had.
If you were to go down a list of the players on each team. On paper, as individual players, I think most people would take the Maple Leafs roster.
Let’s take a look:
2013 Blackhawks | 2023 Maple Leafs |
Bickell-Toews-Kane | Knies-Matthews-Nylander |
Sharp-Handzus-Hossa | Jarnkrok-Tavares-Marner |
Saad-Shaw-Stalberg | Bunting-O'Reilly-Acciari |
Kruger-Bolland-Frolik | Lafferty-Kampf-Kerfoot |
| |
Keith-Seabrook | Reilly-Schenn |
Hjarlmarrson-Oduya | McCabe-Brodie |
Leddy-Rosival | Giordano-Lilegren |
| |
Crawford-Emery | Samsonov-Woll |
The Blackhawks were greater than the sum of their parts. Keith and Seabrook were a great pair and clearly the better D goes to Chicago. But, on paper, that Toronto team is incredible.
In a thought experiment, would I rather have Patrick Kane on that Toronto Maple Leafs team than Matthews on that Chicago team? Yes. He was an absolute legend in the playoffs and proved it a ton of time. By that logic, I am going with Patrick Kane.
You're doing the exact same thing every executive has done in Toronto thus far:
You're thinking that the better collection of offensive players is superior.
What you are ignoring, is situational team composition, and player synergies.
Often, the team that wins the special teams mini-series comes out ahead in the actual series.
Often, the team that wins the goaltending head to head is the winner.
Samsonov and Woll is quite a step down from Crawford. Not that he was Roy incarnate, but Samsonov is good for 1-2 bad goals per game and Woll is made of tissue paper.
As for special teams, having Kieth as the point man on the power play is a triple upgrade over Rielly.
1- he was a better skater and distributor, better defensively, and just a much improved player compared to Morgan.
2- he had a threatening shot from the point.
3- because his shot from the point actually scared opponents, the opposing penalty kill couldn't afford to cheat down low into a very tight box (therefore suffocating the 4 forwards in a 4on4 situation below the hash marks), this had the effect of spreading the defenders in the zone and gave the creative forwards more time and space.
I don't understand why it's been so difficult for Leafs management to notice this glaring deficiency in their game.
It's been pointed out for 5 years now and has only half-heartedly been addressed - that was the ENTIRE POINT of signing Klingberg.
Honestly, Sid developed his face-offs one off season, then his scoring another summer.
Matthews has worked on small areas of his game every summer and come to camp with something significantly improved.
Why the hell hasn't Morgan spent an entire summer just taking slap-shots with stiffer sticks, whippier sticks, varying blades, etc, in order to be actually useful in the power play........
Anyway, rant over.
Just because Chicago had more team success, doesn't mean Kane was a better overall player than Matthews.
Auston trails Kane by 100 goals. He has played 700 less games.
Despite the much stronger team around him, Kane is barely a + player for his career, whereas Matthews has been a - player once. Yeah yeah, plus minus is kind of dumb, but it does show a definitive trend.
This trend is inevitably reinforced by Kane topping out in Selke voting at 25th (the one and only time he had any votes), and Matthews perennially receiving Selke votes with top 3 finish this year.
Then, one has to go to strength of position.
One player plays in the middle and one ond the wing.