The Toronto Maple Leafs are obviously a Cup Contender.
Scotty Bowman, however, once surmised that, to be a truly great team special teams should amount to a combined top 10 ranking in the NHL. The Toronto Maple Leafs should therefore have that as their goal.
In the past 10 years alone, every Cup winner has been inside the top 11 for at least 1 special teams (Boston bucking the trend in 2011 the lone exception), so there’s probably something to Bowmen’s theory.
That the Leafs finished with the 16th best power-play, and the 23rd PK in special teams in 2020-21 tells you there’s work to do, but take a closer look and you’ll see that the Buds are much closer to Scotty’s magic number of contending than at first glance.