LeBrun: What rival NHL executives are saying about the simmering Maple Leafs

TORONTO — The problem, of course, is that you can’t evaluate the Maple Leafs’ start to the 2022-23 season in a vacuum.

Whether it’s fair or not, the team’s 4-4-2 record isn’t just about the first 10 games of the season.

It’s about a powder keg that has always been sitting there because, for this organization as it’s currently constructed, this is the do-or-die season.

It’s about general manager Kyle Dubas not being offered a contract extension this past summer, which came after the team lost in the first round of the playoffs — which came after other first-round fumbles in the years prior. No one’s panicking about the Lightning’s so-so start. For obvious reasons. When the Leafs decided not to extend Dubas, it put everyone in the organization on notice, including the players. And they can’t help but feel it, whether they admit it or not.

And it’s about Auston Matthews, who likely has to decide by the end of this season if he intends to extend with the Leafs. His current contract expires and he becomes an unrestricted free agent after the 2023-24 season. I still think he will want to re-sign with the Leafs. But the point is, that’s another major franchise decision looming, and wouldn’t that decision be easier to make if the team finally does something in the playoffs?

There’s so much riding on this season for so many people, and from the offseason into camp, people from other organizations relayed to me that they could sense that tension in the Toronto front office. And I mean, it’s understandable. People’s jobs are on the line.

What I didn’t see coming, and maybe I should have given what’s at stake, was this level of drama so early this season. I figured this team would more or less steamroll through the regular season, finish first or second in the Atlantic, and then we would get set for the playoff drama, regardless of the final outcome.

But since training camp, head coach Sheldon Keefe has been hinting at his level of concern through his actions, whether it’s dropping an F-bomb during a drill in camp or directing a number of postgame comments at his players right from opening night in Montreal.

Some of his comments early this season have certainly been noted around the league.

I asked Keefe during his daily media availability on the morning of an Oct. 20 game against the Stars if he intended to approach the season this way or if it was spur-of-the-moment reactions.

He responded: “Well, it’s a little bit of both. It’s a combination of the fact that we had talked before the season began about the importance of being really consistent and having our game, as often as we can, look like ourselves. Right from Game 1, that wasn’t the case. Even though you have a lot of good things happening in preseason and you got a lot of confidence going, you go out there and it doesn’t look that way.

“For a team that’s been together as long as ours has — I know we have new players and stuff like that…