It’s do-or-die for the Leafs after nightmarish homestand
The Toronto Maple Leafs find themselves in an unfamiliar position, at least for the current core.
Ever since the Leafs selected Auston Matthews first overall in the 2016 NHL Draft, the team has only known regular-season success. Playoff success, not so much, but Toronto has at least been consistent in getting to the dance in the first place. They hold the longest playoff streak in the NHL, entering the year with nine consecutive appearances.
Not only have the Leafs consistently appeared in the postseason, they’ve also rarely had to fight for a spot. Before this season, the Leafs have usually found themselves well ahead of the playoff race, often clinching their spot a week or two before the end of the regular season. Only twice has their playoff race come down to the wire: the first season of this core in 2016-17, when they clinched the playoffs in Game 81 over an injury-riddled Tampa Bay Lightning squad; and the 2019-20 season, when they were neck-and-neck with the Florida Panthers for third place in the Atlantic Division before the season was halted due to the pandemic.
For many members of the team, the pressure of every single win being the difference between making and missing the playoffs is something they aren’t used to.
“I feel like last year we were feeling good all the way through the season,” said left winger Bobby McMann ahead of Tuesday’s 6-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres. “This year we’re fighting a little bit more.”
“I’ve been here for three years now, so at this point, we were already in a playoff spot with a couple points ahead,” said defenseman Simon Benoit. “Obviously, this year is not the same scenario. We’re a couple points behind. So it’s a must win. Every night is a must win if you want to make the playoffs.”
The Leafs sit in seventh in a loaded Atlantic Division which has five teams in playoff spots. Their 24-20-9 record, good for 57 points, has them eight points behind the Sabres, Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins. With 53 games played, Toronto has one game in hand on Boston, as many played as Montreal and one more than Buffalo.
However, it’s not as easy as drawing even with the teams, as the tiebreakers do not favor the Leafs either. Toronto ranks last in the Atlantic in regulation wins (17). They’re seventh in regulation and overtime wins (24). They’re tied for last in overall wins (24). They’re tied for last in goal differential (-9). They’re sixth in goals scored. Among the six Atlantic teams duking it out for what will be at most three spots (Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto), the Leafs only have a winning record against the Panthers and Senators. There is no tiebreaker in which the Leafs have a clear advantage over their competitors. They can’t just catch up with all these teams; they need to overtake them.
“It’s a tough league. Every single team is pushing for the playoffs,” Benoit said. “So obviously when you go a couple stretches without winning, you lose those points. And then if some teams go on a hot streak, it can get away from you real quick.”
The Leafs had a lot of momentum going into a five-game homestand after a tough road trip which saw them come away with points in three of four games. The trip’s highlight was a gutsy 4-3 overtime win over the league-leading Colorado Avalanche. Riding that momentum, Toronto was looking to further build on their playoff chances at home.
But the return home wasn’t what Toronto would have hoped for. They dropped all five games, coming away with just one point. While the 2-1 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings can be chalked up to not getting the bounces, the other four games saw them get outclassed, particularly in Mitch Marner’s return to Toronto last Friday. If you want to be pessimistic and include the road trip in this recent slump, the Leafs have lost seven of their last eight games and only have one regulation win in their last 11 games.
“It’s obvious it’s not great,” said center John Tavares after Tuesday’s loss. “We didn’t take advantage of the opportunity here with five at home, so it’s disappointing, no doubt.”
“Coming home here, I think we put ourselves in a pretty good place to climb in the standings,” said head coach Craig Berube prior to the game. “We’ve been a good home team, but that obviously wasn’t the case this time coming home.”
The good news is this isn’t the first time the Leafs have had a tough stretch and responded with a season-saving points streak. When I last spelled doom and gloom about Toronto, it came after a 6-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins, which started the 9-3-1 stretch the team entered this homestand on. The Leafs were 6-10-4 in the 20 games prior to that stretch.
“We’re focusing on the stretch of games this year that we played really well in, and trying to get back to that a little bit,” said McMann prior to Tuesday’s loss. “And that’s just being predictable for each other, making good decisions on the ice, being detailed and being available for guys to make plays. I think when we’re making plays, that’s when we’re at our best.”
“We can’t look any further than what’s in front of us,” said Matthews after Tuesday’s loss. “Tonight’s over with and it’s obviously frustrating, but we can’t look ahead at the schedule. It’s about the next game against Seattle, and it’s about making sure that we’re ready to go, and realizing how important these points are, and realizing how desperate we need to be as a team each and every night, each and every shift and period.”
One could chalk the recent slump to injuries. Top right winger William Nylander has missed the last five games with a lower-body injury, and before the three games and 2:17 which he played before that injury, he missed six games with another one. Top shutdown defenseman Chris Tanev is out for the regular season and only played 11 games this year. This is the first stretch of the season where goaltenders Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll are both healthy. Only Tavares and blueliner Oliver Ekman-Larsson have played every game this season, but Ekman-Larsson left last week’s loss to Detroit with an injury, so who knows what he’s playing through? The Leafs have had brutal luck in terms of injuries, especially on defense and in net.
But the biggest problem is the math isn’t on their side. The Leafs sit 25th in the league in 5v5 expected goals share (47.55%), 31st in 5v5 shot attempt share (44.98%) and 22nd in 5v5 goal share (47.93%). They aren’t possessing the puck and generating chances, which is hurting them offensively (2.56 5v5 xGF per 60 minutes, tied for 25th) and defensively (2.83 5v5 xGA/60, tied for 20th). At the end of the day, the Leafs are losing because they’re the worse team most games.
So now the Leafs find themselves at a crossroads as the trade deadline draws closer. They sit eight points out of a playoff spot, but they also are only seven points ahead of the New York Rangers, who sit last in the Eastern Conference and are in the bottom-five of the league. Toronto lacks the depth and ability to keep up with the top teams in the league like they used to, but they also lack the draft pick capital to commit to a rebuild. In fact, they don’t fully own this season’s first-round pick, as it belongs to the Bruins unless it’s a top-five selection. They’re too good to be bad and too bad to be good.
There’s also another roadblock in the Leafs’ deadline plans: the Olympic break. With NHL rosters set to freeze from 3:00 p.m. ET on Feb. 8 to 11:59 p.m. ET on Feb. 22, it’s created a second trade deadline. Many teams are treating Feb. 4 as the first deadline to get players situated with new teams and cities before/over the Olympic break, assuming they aren’t playing in the tournament.
For the teams who know they’re buyers, it gives them a head start on adding the top names on the market (like Rasmus Andersson and Kiefer Sherwood) before too many teams are auctioning for their services. For the teams who know they’re sellers, it drives up the prices of their assets, as buying teams will pay premiums to get ahead.
But for teams like the Leafs, they’re forced to watch from the sidelines. They find themselves in the murky middle and unable to commit to one side of the market or the other, as the 4-5 games some teams have before the Olympic break, and the 4-6 they have after, are enough to push their season in one direction or the other. If they come out with points in seven or eight of the 10 games, they’re still in the playoff race. If they only win one or two games, the season may be over. It’s tough for these teams to commit to buying or selling when their season can still swing either way before the deadline, but if they wait too long, the best pieces to buy may be gone.
And for a Leafs team whose choices over the past few seasons have pushed them further into mediocrity, the decision becomes a tougher one. They clearly need some additions to their lineup if they want to chase down a playoff spot, whether it’s the top end of their forward group or the depths of their blueline. But they also lack the capital to make those moves and would need to dip even deeper into their pool to make a difference-making move. But then if those decisions don’t pay off, they’re even further into the hole with fewer assets to dig them out, further enforcing the rebuild. But then they also won’t have the resources to properly execute a rebuild, or at least one quick enough to give this core another chance at playoff and Stanley Cup success. And even then, Matthews and Nylander are too good for this team to be good enough lottery contenders for a rebuild.
Do you see what the problem is now? It’s an unenviable position for GM Brad Treliving to be in, especially when his own job is at stake if he commits to punting the season and retooling the team. It’s certainly the easier option, especially if this “Olympic trade deadline” dries up the first trade market and opens the door for him to get good returns for a versatile center like Scott Laughton or a scoring winger with some physicality to his game like McMann. But waving the white flag on a season where the Leafs were supposed to be in the playoff hunt is a bad look for Treliving.
As a stats guy, I’m not one to react to small sample sizes. But it feels like the next 10 games for the Leafs before the March 6 trade deadline will have massive ramifications on not just their 2025-26 season, but the long-term scope of this team. I guess it depends on which version of the Leafs shows up down this next stretch.
“If we want to make up ground in the standings and make a push here, we have to be desperate,” said defenseman Morgan Rielly after Tuesday’s loss. “And I don’t think we’ve had that in our game enough.”
“There’s still a lot of hockey left, and I think the standings are really close,” said left winger Matthew Knies. “I haven’t really looked at it much, to be honest with you. That’s how confident I am that we’re gonna get there.”
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