from Travis Yost Of TSN,

Stop me if you have heard this one before: Exiting the holiday break, the Toronto Maple Leafs are well- positioned in the NHL standings and are starting to build a resume of what looks like a Stanley Cup contender.

You could have stopped me in most of the seasons under Kyle Dubas’ watch, to be sure. Toronto has had a knack for dominating the average NHL opponent for some time now, rarely anxious or concerned about their chances of making the playoffs. But any observer of the Maple Leafs also understands their checkered postseason past, and how little strong regular-season play matters right now. Toronto needs to deliver a winner come April, and little else matters.

One of the fascinating parts of the Maple Leafs under Dubas (and, more recently, head coach Sheldon Keefe) is while they coast through regular seasons, there has always been some area of concern across the lineup. Whether it was the young, immature, mistake-prone blueline from a few years back, goaltending woes, or scoring droughts from their big guns when it mattered most, there has always been an issue. And against your average regular-season opponent, those things may not matter. But when the quality of competition ramps up, these issues become more obvious and exposed.

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