Toronto Maple Leafs

Maple Leafs Still Carry the Baggage of the Past

Howard Berger’s Leafs satire is funny, but underneath it is a serious question: Have the Maple Leafs really left their old baggage behind?

by
Old Prof
October 8, 2026

If you are a Toronto Maple Leafs fan and don’t read Howard Berger’s posts, I encourage you to start. There are cautions, but he’s a generally thoughtful, intelligent commentator about the team and its situations. His recent post satirized the panic in Toronto about the team’s 2-2 start.

It was funny. In this case, ridiculous. But sometimes, buried under all the silliness, something makes me stop and think. This one did.

Berger Lays Out a Corporate Maple Leafs Board Meeting

Berger’s imaginary Maple Leafs meeting is built around a 1–2 record. Everybody is panicking. The owner is worried about money. The hockey people are worried about hockey. The coach is worried about leadership. The general manager is defending the first overall pick. And somehow Auston Matthews jersey sales have become the most important statistic in the room.

It’s funny because it’s absurd. But I think there’s a serious point underneath it. His point? The Maple Leafs are still carrying a tremendous amount of baggage. A 1–2 record shouldn’t be a crisis. Gavin McKenna going scoreless for three games shouldn’t suddenly make the first overall pick a mistake. A coach shouldn’t be fired because of one bad stretch in October.

Yet this is how the Maple Leafs have often been discussed. Every new development gets measured against something that happened before. Berger is reminding us how easily the past walks into the room, even when we’re supposed to be talking about the present.

Berger and I Disagree on a Lot of Maple Leafs Things, Still …

And this is where I think he challenges me a little. I’ve been writing about turning the page. The Mitch Marner chapter is over. The Core Four era is over. Last season is over. The Maple Leafs have new management, a new coach and a different-looking roster.

I’m still inclined to believe that. Berger seems more skeptical. His joke about Matthews is particularly interesting. He keeps bringing the captain back into the conversation, asking whether he’ll lead the team, score enough goals, or somehow rescue everything.

That’s not necessarily an argument that Matthews is the problem. (Although Berger, for a lot of reasons, has a bad on for Matthews in particular.) I think it’s an argument that we’ve made him responsible for too much for too long.

There Remain Decisions to Make About the Maple Leafs

Maybe that’s the lesson I take from Berger. We don’t have to decide after four games whether this Maple Leafs experiment is working. And we don’t have to decide whether Gavin McKenna is going to be a superstar. We don’t have to decide whether Jim Hiller is the right coach.

We don’t even have to decide whether Auston Matthews will finally lead this team to a championship. But we can watch. That’s actually what makes the beginning of a season interesting. Berger’s satire reminds me that the Maple Leafs can change their roster much faster than they can change the story around it.

The old expectations don’t disappear just because the players do. Maybe that’s the real barnacle. And maybe getting rid of it takes a little longer than one offseason.