How much more losing will Auston Matthews accept in Toronto?

Nov 13, 2026, 10:41 EST

Credit: Nov 7, 2026; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews (34) looks on during warm up before a game against the Montreal Canadiens at Scotiabank Arena. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images

“It’s three of the last four or five where we played well enough, but it’s not good enough, really. So we can’t take moral victories in playing close and being there and losing this way.”

Jim Hiller hasn’t had a perfect read of his Toronto Maple Leafs’ performance so far this season, but he was on the mark there.

In the game. Competitive. But not really, right?

The Leafs were churning their legs just to keep pace with the mighty Minnesota Wild for much of Thursday’s 5-2 home loss, outclassed by Minnesota’s dominant first line of Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy, whose shifts resembled power plays most of the night before Eriksson Ek left with an injury. Toronto’s pushback evaporated in the third period after Minnesota widened its lead to 4-2. And the Leafs, while they had their moments, simply weren’t competitive enough to hang with one of the better teams in the NHL.

That’s been true for five consecutive games during a nightmarish homestand at Scotiabank Arena, with losses to the Utah Mammoth, Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche and Wild taking a meat tenderizer to an 8-6-2 start, pounding it down into an 8-11-2 record, now good for the 12^th-best points percentage in the Eastern Conference. The Leafs have been outscored 22-7 across this stretch.

They’ve had to endure injuries to Kirill Marchenko up front and Morgan Rielly on defense. They haven’t gotten the clutch goaltending they’ve needed from Sergei Bobrovsky. Star right winger William Nylander has slumped, with three points in his past seven games. Their penalty kill, which looked invincible in October, has coughed up five power-play goals during the five-game losing streak. After each of their defeats, they’ve seemed at a loss for explaining why they can’t steer out of the skid, offering the usual “play a full 60” adage – it was fourth-liner Zack MacEwen’s turn to utter it Thursday night.

And, with alarming frequency, coach Jim Hiller has had difficulty managing his lineup effectively. He’s load-managing shutdown defenseman Chris Tanev against his will despite the urgency of the present schedule slate. Hiller continues to underuse green but undeniably gifted rookie Gavin McKenna, holding him off the top power-play unit and giving him grinder-grade ice time – 10:38 on Thursday, to be exact, the third-lowest mark on the team. Even with last change, Hiller played his fourth line against a No. 1 Wild line that has outscored opponents 17-0 at 5-on-5 this season.

We can add up all the different reasons why the Leafs have begun to bleed losses. Each of them matters. But the sum of the parts hints at a darker realization: despite all the overhauling GM John Chayka did during a bold offseason, this team still isn’t good enough to compete with top-tier opponents. Yes, every team that has beaten the Leafs during their losing streak sits in the top half of the overall NHL standings, but…yes, every one of those teams beat the Leafs. It’s telling, isn’t it?

Toronto’s record through 21 games last season, when they finished last in the Atlantic Division, was 9-9-3. This year it’s worse at 8-11-2. Their expected goal differential per 60 was -0.42 last season, and it’s -0.35 this season, so we can’t pin too much on puck luck or goaltending. The Leafs appear to still be…bad.

And the sluggish start has come despite superstar and captain Auston Matthews having the resurgent season he and the Leafs so desperately needed. With 12 goals and 29 points through 21 games, he’s tracking for a 48-goal, 116-point campaign, currently sixth in league scoring. He showed up early in Thursday’s game with a nifty breakaway finish to beat elite Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt. After an injury-shortened 2025-26 that was also the least productive of his career even before he got hurt, Matthews is back to looking like one of the 10 best players in the NHL. Just as importantly, he looks healthy as a horse.

And you have to wonder what he’s thinking deep down about what he’s seen through the first quarter of Toronto’s season.

I use the term “deep down,” because he’s showing few if any signs of visible frustration so far. He’s been a good soldier, a much more present and vocal captain in his media presence this season than last, and he’s maintained a countenance of positivity even through this losing streak. As far as we can tell, he genuinely still believes in this team, even if he acknowledges the difficulty of the current stretch.

“I mean, I get it, it’s tough sledding right now for everybody,” he said after the defeat Thursday. “It’s obviously not fun. The losses keep piling up. I think the confidence gets shaken a little bit. But it’s just on us as a team, as a group, to fight through it and stop compounding these big mistakes that end up in the back of our net.”

But as the losses pile up and the Leafs plunge toward the ocean floor of the standings, it’s hard not to think about the reports that emerged in the summer in the days and weeks after Chayka and senior executive advisor Mats Sundin took over as the team’s brain trust. As the story went, Matthews, who entered the season with two years left on his contract, was still relatively happy in Toronto and wanted to remain a Leaf – but his position was contingent on what the team’s direction was.

Chayka’s thrilling, risky offseason gave the air of a GM trying his hardest to appease his superstar. The Leafs bought the consensus top defenseman and goalie on the UFA market in Darren Raddysh and Sergei Bobrovsky, respectively. They signed Matthews’ friend and old USA Hockey National Team Development Program linemate Jack Roslovic. They overhauled their bottom six forwards. They pulled a blockbuster trade for talented scorer Kirill Marchenko the day before the season. When the puck dropped for their opening-night tilt with the Canadiens Sept. 29, the Leafs dressed 10 skaters making their team debuts.

No one could say for sure if the ambitious chemistry experiment would work but, after last year’s playoff miss, and with Matthews set to become a UFA in 2028, the team had little to lose. It hardly felt like a coincidence that, aside from the big-ticket acquisitions, Chayka handed out a lot of two-year deals expiring at the same time as Matthews’ contract. The connotation: “We’re taking our last best swing while we still have him on this team.”

Flash forward to the exact one-quarter mark of Toronto’s season and…the Leafs don’t seem to be going anywhere meaningful.

As they struggle, American goaltender Connor Hellebuyck is thriving early in his new journey as a Devil, having walked away from the Winnipeg Jets. American power forward Brady Tkachuk, no longer the Ottawa Senators’ captain, is living out a dream playing with his brother Matthew on the Florida Panthers. American defenseman Quinn Hughes, a pending UFA, is chasing a Stanley Cup with the Wild a year after forcing his way off the Vancouver Canucks. The Detroit Red Wings’ American top-line center Dylan Larkin, stripped of his captaincy, awaits a trade as well.

Seemingly led by the Team USA 2026 gold-medallist contingent, the NHL’s player empowerment era is in full swing, much to the chagrin of GMs who have committed significant money and term to their stars, and raising some viable concerns in the eyes of commissioner Gary Bettman, whose stance on the matter has spiked the tension in what has been an impressively peaceful relationship with the NHL Players’ Association of late. And dare I say anyone who isn’t starting to let the questions creep in regarding Matthews, another 2026 USA gold medallist, is lying.

He’ll be 30 years old by the time next season starts. He has yet to escape Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs in his career. He’s made it clear that a winning team trajectory matters. And why wouldn’t it? If the Leafs continue to slide out of the playoff race, then, the ripples of doubt about Matthews’ future will rise into a tidal wave.

What can the Leafs do to avoid that happening? Do they have to consider an early pink slip for Hiller, an affable man who nevertheless looks overmatched and uncomfortable in the job far too often? Does Chayka contact the Vegas Golden Knights about unchaining Bruce Cassidy?

Maybe that’s a reactionary thought, but reactionary is warranted given what could become an urgent situation with Matthews eligible to sign an extension July 1, 2027.

In the meantime, though, the Leafs are refusing to display visible signs of panic. Not even after five home losses in a row. As Nylander pointed out after Thursday’s game, it’s better to land in this valley now, when there’s time to save the season, than a few months from now. And Hiller believes team morale hasn’t tanked.

“I see lots of hope. I see lots of hope. Yeah, yeah, I see lots of hope,” Hiller said. “I see it all over the place. I really do.”

“You’ve got to forget about it, go out there and work hard,” goaltender Anthony Stolarz told Daily Faceoff. “No one’s feeling sorry for us, so it’s gonna be up to us to crawl out of it, put the onus on ourselves to go out there and work. And whether that’s a goalie stealing a game, a player taking over, our PK or the PP grabbing the bull by the horns, something’s gonna have to happen to get us out of that. I think once we get that feeling back of being in the win column, we just go from there.”

We’ll see how long they can maintain that outlook, though. Next up: a date with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard and the electric Edmonton Oilers. Gulp.

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POST SPONSORED BY bet365

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