Maple Leafs alumni eager to see if Tavares, Matthews can deliver Cup

TORONTO -- Wendel Clark can see the blue-and-white Auston Matthews and John Tavares banners dangling from the light poles on the streets below his swank penthouse in downtown Toronto.

For the former captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, it's yet another example of how the hype surrounding the 2018-19 team has gone off the charts.
"You see it everywhere. It's crazy, isn't it?" Clark said. "But it's a fun crazy. It's a great thing for your city when there is optimism for the hometown team.
"Everyone is walking around happy. We're like psychiatrists because you're taking people's minds away from their other problems. Everybody has it and everyone is pulling in the same direction."

The Maple Leafs open the season at home against the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; SN, RDS, NHL.TV). The anticipation is frenzied, especially after Toronto won six of eight preseason games. Clark, 51, said he hasn't seen the city this pumped for an NHL season since he, Doug Gilmour and the Maple Leafs went on back-to-back runs in the Stanley Cup Playoffs that featured trips to the conference final in 1993 and 1994.
Patrick Marleau, 39, was still a teenager then and watched the Maple Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada, dreaming of one day playing in the NHL. More than two decades later, he, like Clark, is getting a taste of the hysteria for this season.
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For Marleau, a forward who is starting his second season with Toronto after playing the previous 19 with the San Jose Sharks, he is embracing every moment.
"I'll be going to pick up the kids at school, and the parking attendants who move the car along will always stop me and want to talk Leafs," Marleau said. "I see them every day. They're great guys. I love talking to them."
The daily message to Marleau is always the same: This could be the season the Maple Leafs, who haven't won the Stanley Cup since 1967, end the drought.
"I hear the same thing everywhere around town," Marleau said. "Everybody's really pumped up about this year. It would be hard not to be.
"We have a great group of players who are really skilled. Now it's up to us."

There are plenty of reasons for such optimism.
The Maple Leafs set team records for points (105), wins (49) and home wins (28) last season. The signing of Tavares to a seven-year, $77 million contract as an unrestricted free agent on July 1 served to boost hopes even more after the promise of last season, which ended with a seven-game elimination against the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference First Round.
"There are a lot of positive vibes coming right now from the fans," Clark said. "They're all excited because of last season, because of making the playoffs for two consecutive years, because of [Tavares], because of the success in the exhibition season … yeah, it's only exhibition season, but winning is fun. As a fan, this is fun."
Tavares, 28, and Matthews, 21, are the Maple Leafs top two forwards and have become the unofficial faces of the franchise. Matthews, the No. 1 pick at the 2016 NHL Draft, is featured on the tickets for the season opener. He appeared in a fashion shoot in an edition of GQ magazine that was published last week.

But as popular as Matthews is, Clark said Maple Leafs fever escalated when Tavares, the No. 1 pick in 2009 by the New York Islanders, elected to go home and play for Toronto.
"He knows all the teams in the League better than I do as a fan," Clark said. "And he thinks that, 'Oh, in this window for [the] next five years, this might be the best place for me to win.'
"As a fan, that's what has me encouraged. Players don't decide not to come to Canada because of the pressure; players come to a market because they think they can win there."
The Maple Leafs haven't experienced much success over the past half century. Since the Cup championship in 1967, they have reached the final four of the playoffs four times and failed to reach the Cup Final each time: 1993 (lost to the Los Angeles Kings), 1994 (lost to the Vancouver Canucks), 1999 (lost to the Buffalo Sabres) and 2002 (lost to the Carolina Hurricanes).
Former Maple Leafs goaltender Curtis Joseph thought they were ready to go to the next level during his time with Toronto from 1998-2002. Twice he helped them reach the Eastern Conference Final (1999, 2002); twice they fell short.

"The buzz around town right now about the Leafs is awesome," Joseph, 51, said. "I wish I would have appreciated it more when I played. When you're living in the moment, you're kind of sheltered. … I was too focused and engaged in my surroundings. It was just home and work.
"Now that I'm out of it, I see the signing of John Tavares and just all the hype and the expectations, and it's amazing. It's such a great, great place to play. I wish I would have stepped out of my box and looked around a little bit. I don't know if I would have played at my level; I'm sure I could have, but as a fan now it's so exciting. I want to play now. It makes me want to play.
"The fans' excitement is intoxicating."