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Toronto Maple Leafs
Overall: 118
Title track: 100
Ownership: 93
Coaching: 18
Players: 112
Fan relations: 113
Affordability: 122
Stadium experience: 107
Bang for the buck: 121
Change from last year: +4
It took just one season for the all-world leadership corps of president Brendan Shanahan, GM Lou Lamoriello and head coach Mike Babcock to make an impact in Toronto: For the first time in three years, the Maple Leafs did not finish dead last in our standings.
What's good
Not much, at least not yet. The Leafs finished 30th out of 30 teams in the NHL standings in 2015-16, missing the playoffs for the 10th time in 11 tries. But Babcock warned that things would get worse before they got better when he left the Red Wings -- where he won the Stanley Cup in 2008 -- for hockey's highest-profile job in 2015. Long-suffering fans have bought into Babcock's plans: Coaching jumped 20 spots, to No. 18, despite the dismal first-year results. There is cautious optimism in Canada's biggest city these days as the rebuild continues. It grew further when Toronto won the draft lottery and took American center Auston Matthews with the top overall pick. Fellow blue-chippers William Nylander and Morgan Reilly are already on board, and Toronto's goaltending should be better thanks to the acquisition of former Ducks backstop Frederick Andersen.
What's bad
Despite the optimism, not all is rosy in Toronto. It's no coincidence that the Leafs are our lowest-ranked NHL team for the ninth consecutive season. They have the worst fan relations in the league (113th overall). Their average ticket price ($113.66) is an astounding 25 bucks more than the next-most expensive in the NHL and almost double the league average. That makes the laughable Leafs the least affordable team to support in North America. Not surprisingly, those who pay through the nose for an inferior product (mainly corporate types, resulting in unoccupied seats and a lifeless atmosphere at Air Canada Center) also get the worst bang for their buck in hockey.
What's new
Look, it's always going to cost top dollar to attend a Leafs game. Hockey rules Toronto, regardless of the standings. But real change is happening. Shanahan, Lamoriello and Babcock own three of the sharpest minds in the sport, and they have been afforded the time and Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment's vast resources in the hopes of snaring, eventually, the club's first Cup since 1967. Leafs Nation can feel it: Title track jumped 20 spots this year. Even long-hated MLSE is winning hearts and minds, with ownership up 22 spots.