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The Maple Leafs won the Northeast Division and reached the 100-point plateau in 1999-2000. But Toronto fell to eventual champion New Jersey in the conference semifinals, once again confirming there's something lacking on the Leafs' roster that prevents them from being a true Cup contender. ESPN.com takes a Closer Look at the Leafs and what they needs to get better next season.

Season Review: CuJo's big bite

	Joseph

No team in the East won more games than Toronto's 45 victories. That's pretty impressive. One of the major reasons for the team's great regular-season success in recent years (90 wins the last two seasons) is goalie Curtis Joseph. In his second year with the Leafs, he had a career best .915 save percentage and tied his career-high with 36 wins. Joseph is the type of goalie other teams envy because he can steal a game on his own. That gives a huge confidence boost to the skaters in front of him.

Speaking of those guys, the Leafs were hurt by injuries to both forwards and defensemen. Youngsters Bryan Berard and Danny Markov missed a lot of time, and Berard's career is in serious jeopardy because of his eye injury. Offensively, the Leafs weren't quite as effective as the previous season when they led the league with 268 goals, but some solid performances were turned in. Jonas Hoglund scored 29 goals, and Mats Sundin produced his usual point-a-game season.

Steve Thomas began slowly but scored in bunches the second half, netting 20 goals in the final 43 games. Newcomer Dmitri Khristich missed a lot of games with a groin injury and scored 16 fewer goals than the previous season with Boston. Yanic Perreault played just 58 games, but had 18 goals and 45 points.

In the playoffs, Joseph did his part (2.06 goals-against average) but questions of toughness, depth and clutch scoring were confirmed. If Sundin wants to be considered a legitimate star, he has to produce more than eight points in 12 playoff games. He was held pointless in the final two losses to New Jersey.

The Open Market: Serious about improvement
First off, the Leafs have done an excellent job getting people signed going into camp. At this point, only Alexander Karpovtsev remains the only roster regular still unsigned -- and his agent is the notorious Mark Gandler, who also represents Ottawa holdout Alexei Yashin.

	FREE AGENCY
	Key unsigned free agents: Alexander Karpovtsev Signings/offseason acquisitions: Glenn Healy, Shayne Corson, Jonas Hoglund, Danny Markov, Alyn McCauley, Yanic Perreault, Gary Roberts

Signing Shayne Corson and Gary Roberts sends a clear message to NHL opponents and Leafs fans that management is focused on running with the big boys. Neither is an A-level NHL star, but they are solid, physical forwards who can score as well as mix it up. Combined, they have played more than 1,500 NHL games and scored more than 550 goals -- to go along with an aggregate 4,049 penalty minutes. With their grit and veteran leadership, fewer teams will push the Leafs around. The hope is that will help in the playoffs, especially in terms of giving Sundin more space and time.

With Corson and Roberts, perhaps the New Jerseys of the NHL world won't be able to contain the top guns so easily.

How to improve: Health and consistency
Toronto has regular-season success down to a science, but now, it's time to match it with a similar playoff template. The Northeast Division isn't that strong, but even so, perhaps the Leafs should figure out a way to conserve some energy for a playoff run. Despite the Devils' Cup win, the East will, once again, be wide open.

If players like Khristich, Perreault and Markov remain healthy and productive, they will provide the depth necessary to complement the additions of Corson and Roberts. It will be interesting to see how well the Leafs are without Berard for a full season; he was a plus-11, a solid power-play contributor and only getting better.

But in the end, if Joseph isn't stellar, no forward progress will be made.

Brian A. Shactman is the NHL editor for ESPN.com.