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Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock speaks to reporters during a press conference on the first day of training camp in Toronto Thursday.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press

The Toronto Maple Leafs may soon discover the next step up is the most difficult.

They have already accomplished what is usually the easiest step for an improving NHL team, that first big jump up the standings when a collection of new talent comes together before the rest of the league is prepared for it. Those are the jumps that often produce a coach-of-the-year trophy.

But it is the next step, going from playoff contender to Stanley Cup contender, that too often is too much for many teams. Think not? There is a thread of evidence running through the Maple Leafs back to 1982.

The late Pat Burns won his second Jack Adams Award as coach of the year after the 1992-93 season when he came over from the Montreal Canadiens. Burns led the previously awful Leafs to a 44-29-11 record and came within a missed high-sticking call on Wayne Gretzky to playing his old team for the Stanley Cup. Burns repeated the appearance in the conference final the following year, but fell short by a wider margin and the decline set in. Two years after that, Burns was fired and the Leafs were in the wilderness again.

Burns's predecessor was Tom Watt, who was fired after the 1991-92 season when the Leafs straggled to a 30-43-7 record. But 10 years earlier, Watt was the Jack Adams winner when he worked his magic on the Winnipeg Jets. Watt directed a 52-point improvement in the Jets, who had a mere nine wins under Tom McVie in 1980-81, taking them to a 33-33-14 record and 80 points. But the Jets could not get past the first round of the playoffs in that season or the next two and Watt was fired before the end of his third season as head coach.

All of those Leafs and Jets teams had fatal flaws and none had as much talent on the roster as the present-day Leafs. But second-stage progress is more difficult now. The old Jets and Leafs played in a time in which 16 of 21 teams made the playoffs and there was no salary cap.

Today, only 16 of 31 teams are admitted to the postseason and the non-stop scouting, with the overwhelming amount of video available, means there are no more surprises once a team gets on the radar. Good teams do miss the playoffs.

It would appear Leafs head coach Mike Babcock and general manager Lou Lamoriello, despite their proclamations at the first day of training camp that they were amazed at the great shape all the players were in, have been spreading that message in the dressing room.

"We're happy with some strides forward we took last year, but when you look back at it, we made the playoffs on the last day of the year and lost in the first round," defenceman Morgan Rielly said. "We have a long way to go to get where we want to be. We're all aware of that."

Next up was veteran centre Tyler Bozak: "We lost in the first round. We gave a good team a run. It gets harder after that. We got lucky last year; the injuries fell into place."

Maybe it's a good omen, then, that Babcock did not win the coach-of-the-year award for the Leafs' 26-point improvement last season. He was one of the runners-up to John Tortorella of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Babcock says the Leafs can avoid – heck, call it a sophomore slump because there were so many rookies last season – by living in the moment. The enemy is complacency following a good season.

"If I deal with today, if I live in the present, everything's good. I'm not spending much time worrying about last year or next year. We're going to get ready for tomorrow and try to get better.

"I can't tell you which is the harder step. I don't know that for sure. I just think we're a team going in the right direction and we want to take another step this year. We're excited."

The biggest improvement is needed on defence. The Leafs were 22nd in the NHL last season in goals-against with 242 in 82 games, a rate of 2.71 a game. That may look okay on paper but the bottom 10 in goals-against rarely go places. The playoff team the Leafs put a scare into, the Washington Capitals, were first at 2.22 goals a game. Half a goal a game is a big margin in the NHL.

Any improvement to the defence will have to come internally. Ron Hainsey, 36, was signed to provide experience and depth but he is not a guaranteed upgrade from the departed Matt Hunwick. Roman Polak, another veteran, is back with the Leafs on a professional tryout offer but he is coming off a broken fibula in the Capitals series.

Rielly is now in his fifth NHL season at 23 and did show in the playoffs he has the goods to be a No. 1 defenceman. Jake Gardiner and Nikita Zaitsev are also expected to step up to round out the top four.

Calgary’s mayor says he was “surprised” by the Flames saying they would pull out of talks with the city on a new NHL arena. Naheed Nenshi says the city made a “very fair offer” toward building a new home for the team.

The Canadian Press

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