SIMMONS: Can Matthews, Marner and Nylander score less, win more in another Maple Leafs Stanley Cup chase?

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Auston Matthews scored an astounding 69 goals last season — 12 more than anyone on the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, 15 more than anyone on the Edmonton Oilers — and in the end it wasn’t enough for the Maple Leafs.

And now he is team captain, and the assumption is that will mean some kind of mega-word change, with people who don’t understand hockey saying this is his team, but really, how can he be expected to be any better than he was a year ago? How can be he possibly contribute any more, offensively or defensively, than he did a year ago, playoff injuries aside?

William Nylander finished 10th in scoring in the NHL last season — the first time he’d ever been top 10 — the greatest year of a pretty good career, his signature season coming with a contract and his reputation on the line. He had 98 points, should have had more than 100, really, but didn’t score a goal in the final 11 games of the regular season and produced only four points in the final month.

Can more any more be expected of Nylander, whom coach Craig Berube is attempting to play at centre? Unlikely, really. How many wingers ever successfully move from the wing to centre? Mark Messier did it about 100 years ago.

The move from centre to the wing happens often. The opposite, not so much.

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Mitch Marner led the Maple Leafs in assists, headlines and analysis last season, scoring 1.23 points a game — a 100-point pace had he played the entire season. Can any more be expected of Marner, health aside? Maybe he will play more games. Maybe he will wind up somewhere in the top 10 in scoring. Maybe he will say the wrong thing or show the wrong kind of body language and we’ll have something to chew on for a few days.

But hockey-wise, as the Maple Leafs took to the ice for the first day of training camp and a brand new season of hope, this question can be fairly asked: What can Matthews, Nylander and Marner, the Big Three rather than the Core Four, do in the season that they haven’t already accomplished?

This is why Brendan Shanahan is doing his same-old, same-old routine — and gets killed for it publicly — when it comes to the Maple Leafs’ best players. Hardly anyone in hockey has the talent the Leafs have up top and hardly anyone has experienced the annual frustration of going nowhere in the post-season.

Shanahan played with Steve Yzerman in Detroit. As different as they were, both went to the Hall of Fame. Yzerman had to broaden his game, shrink his scoring, to win Stanley Cups in Detroit. He won his first Cup in his 14th NHL season. Shanahan, as a teammate, won his first Cup in his 10th.

This is Year 9 for Matthews, Marner and Nylander. The Leafs are playing the long game with them. They are no longer kids. The big goal doesn’t change — it remains the same, as far away as that may seem. You can dream of winning Stanley Cups when you’re a team that has advanced past the first round only once in your career, but the reality is that teams without a playoff history of consequence rarely win the Cup.

Florida lost in the final before it won the Cup. Vegas had been to the Cup and conference finals before it won. Colorado had won three rounds in three years before its Cup.

The only playoff series the Leafs have won in the past decade came when they were outplayed by Tampa Bay, who won the Cup twice, but also lost a final.

That’s the way it usually works in the NHL. You move up incrementally.

But if you’re as skilled and driven the way Matthews is — and the same is true of Nylander and Marner — great players can be as different as they are and still be great and creative. You need big goals to take the step you haven’t before made.

General manager Brad Treliving just spent his first full year with the Leafs. He and Shanahan did in the off-season what general managers and team presidents do every summer. They evaluate. Then they evaluate some more. They examine possibilities.

Can they trade Nylander, and if so for whom, and does that make your team better?

This past summer, they took calls on Marner, heard all kinds of cocamamie offers. None were worth considering or approaching Marner about his no-trade arrangement. None of them would have made the team better.

It’s not always a choice to keep your best players in place but sometimes it’s circumstantial. You may want to change the dressing room. You may want to change the culture. In this case, the Leafs chose to change coaches and captains and time will tell whether either move will pay off.

Treliving improved the Leafs defence. Last year, Chris Tanev was traded to Dallas at the deadline. The Stars went 15-4 to finish the season and almost made it to the Cup final. Everyone in Dallas wanted to keep Tanev. The Leafs signing him as a free agent, assuming he stays healthy playing a challenging style, is a big win.

But before that, they lost in Game 7 in Boston by a 2-1 score in overtime. They lost in Game 5 the year before to Florida 3-2 in overtime. The elimination losses before those: 3-1, 3-0, 5-1, 7-4 and 2-1. That’s 11 goals scored in seven haunting defeats. For the greatest goal-scorer of the generation. For the near 100-point wingers. For the most diverse array of high-end talent in the game.

The GM believes he needed to upgrade the team’s defence and the goaltending. But you can’t win if you can’t score when it matters. That the challenge of the next six months.

No matter who the captain happens to be.

ssimmons@postmedia.com