TORONTO -- The Toronto Maple Leafs are trying to keep expectations in check for next season.

The Leafs leaped from last-place in the NHL to an unlikely playoff spot and near upending of the Presidents' Trophy-winning Washington Capitals in the first round. But the organization appears to be guarding against expectations jumping too high too fast for a young team led by 19-year-old Auston Matthews.

"It's a step," Lou Lamoriello, the Leafs general manager, said of the team's surprisingly positive 2016-17 campaign. "(But) it's going to get more difficult. Teams are going to look at you a little different -- the way they approach you. Teams are going to know your tendencies as a player and how they can stop you. So there's a lot that has to transpire. That's why it's just a step."

From Matthews and Mitch Marner to William Nylander and Connor Brown, Toronto's youth took the league by storm this past season, setting multiple franchise rookie records while helping the club to its first post-season berth in four years. Head coach Mike Babcock said the expectation was to get back there again next season, but stressed it will be difficult.

"To just think that we're at the level that it's automatic yet, it's not for us," Babcock said.

Babcock said the organization still needed plenty more depth to survive injuries and stressed the need for players to continue their improvement in the summer. Some needed to add "meat on their bones", others needed to get quicker while some, like Matthews, had to find a few moments for rest.

The 19-year-old, who broke team rookie records with 40 goals and 69 points, planned to sit out the upcoming world hockey championships and instead head home to Arizona where he hoped to catch up with his parents and grandparents and recover from a hectic season which left him "exhausted".

If wary of simply expecting to get into the playoffs next year, players welcome rising expectations.

"It's going to rise," 26-year-old centre Nazem Kadri said. "People understand we're a good team now so we've earned that respect. But now we have to earn the respect of being one of the best teams if we want to compete."

"Now the expectation is that we're going to make the playoffs and we're going to win. That's just life," defenceman Morgan Rielly added. "You expect our group to get better. You expect us to win more games and with that comes playoffs and winning in playoffs."

Matthews said he was looking forward to rest after a gruelling season and said he will not represent the United States at the upcoming world hockey championship.