Ordinarily, Mike Babcock isn't one to appreciate anything short of a win.
But after Auston Matthews' four-goal debut, and impressive performances from other fresh faces in an opening-night loss to the Ottawa Senators that, frankly, is on their goaltender, even he couldn't hide the fact that it was a great night to be the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
"That's the best night I've had here by 10 miles," he said after the game, according to TSN's Kristen Shilton. "Not even close. Because now we have the opportunity."
In his second season in Toronto, the Leafs have a fighting chance for the simple fact that they can score.
With Matthews, his winger William Nylander, and ever-dangerous Mitch Marner, the Leafs have finishers to capitalize on the reasonably successful system they implemented with below-to-league average talent last year. Because with unskilled forwards firing at a league-low clip, having more than an even share of total shot attempts still meant that the Leafs would finish with the third-fewest goals in 2015-16.
With these weapons, it's on Babcock to have the new-look Leafs assimilate back into that simple system, and have those goals translate to wins.
What the coach can't control, however, is the performance of Frederik Andersen, who allowed five goals on 30 shots in the first game into his five-year $25-million contract with the Maple Leafs.
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