dailynewsnblog
The Toronto Maple Leafs entered this season with their sights set on two goals — keeping the NHL’s longest active playoff streak alive and (no snickering, fans of other teams) finally hoisting the city’s first Stanley Cup since before the moon landing.
To say it hasn’t worked out would be an understatement.
The Leafs now sit closer to the NHL’s basement than its penthouse, plummeting from first in the Atlantic Division last season to being all but eliminated from the playoffs for weeks now.
Couple that with controversy over the team’s lack of response to Auston Matthews’ season-ending injury from an objectively dirty hit and GM Brad Treliving’s unceremonious firing Monday just hours before a rematch with the guy who hurt their captain, and you get a glimpse of a team where dysfunction reigns supreme.
Here are five reasons why the Leafs have been one of the NHL’s most disappointing teams this season.
The Marner factor
Let’s get this one out of the way — no, losing star winger Mitch Marner to the Vegas Golden Knights isn’t the reason the Leafs have been a mess this season, but it’s definitely a factor.
Marner popped for 102 points in a contract year last season, and was a key part of both special teams. He was also a no-show in key playoff moments year after year, which had many fans clamouring for him to be traded to usher in some sort of change to the team’s much-vaunted “core four.” (Though really, the time to make that move was in 2021 after the Montreal Canadiens humiliated the Leafs in the playoffs.)
Sure, losing Marner in the offseason for what amounted to depth centre Nicolas Roy (who after this year’s trade deadline netted the team a late first-round pick) stung, but the thought was that by replacing him with more overall depth, the Leafs might be better equipped for the playoff grind.
But for that to work, the team would need to a) replace him with worthwhile pieces and b) actually get to the playoffs. Neither materialized.
The players the Leafs brought in in Marner’s stead (the aforementioned Roy, as well as wingers Dakota Joshua and Matias Maccelli) have largely amounted to spare parts, and their lacklustre play has contributed to the Leafs’ steep tumble down the standings.
(Marner, it should be noted, hasn’t exactly been lighting it up this season either, bouncing between centre and wing on a largely disappointing Golden Knights squad that just fired its coach. Maybe the grass isn’t always greener.)
Front office inaction
Watching the Leafs’ front office this season has basically amounted to this:
Short of a couple of winning streaks that are long in the rearview mirror, any fan with a pulse could see this team has had loads of problems since basically October. They’re old. They’re slow. They’re at the bottom, or close to it, of many key team-based statistical categories, especially on the defensive side.
So what did Treliving do to right the ship?
Made a couple of waiver claims, fired an assistant coach and … that’s about it.
Maybe it has something to do with last season’s disastrous trade deadline where Treliving jettisoned some of the team’s top prospects and first-round picks for players who unequivocally did not warrant their high price tags, leaving him worried about making another mistake.
The NHL trade deadline has come and gone, with teams making their final roster moves– including Toronto’s Maple Leafs. CBC’s Greg Ross has more on what the deals could mean for the team.
Or maybe the problem rests with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment President Keith Pelley, who chose not to replace former Leafs’ president Brendan Shanahan, leaving the team seemingly rudderless in a time of great upheaval.
Whatever the case — to stand by all season and allow this team to continue losing in humiliating fashion without attempting any changes borders on negligent.
The coaching
Look, former NHL tough guy Craig Berube might be a good coach. He won a Cup with St. Louis in 2019, so it’s not like he has no idea what he’s doing.
But Berube’s second year with the Leafs has been fraught with puzzling decisions.
For one, the Leafs never have the puck. After years of prioritizing puck possession under former coach Sheldon Keefe, the team moved to a chip-and-chase style that this roster doesn’t seem equipped to play — and one that only works if you have sensational goaltending to bail you out of trouble.
The team is regularly getting outshot at levels that border on comical:
When questioned by reporters, Berube’s answer to these problems is usually something along the lines of “guys have to dig in and play harder.”
Nobody is questioning that these players have more to give. Their effort levels can veer from questionable to putrid, especially over the last couple of weeks. But it’s a coach’s job to motivate players and implement systems that give them the best chance of success.
Berube has done neither.
Goaltending hasn’t bailed them out
Any hockey fan will tell you: goaltending is unpredictable. Other than a very short list of established stars like Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy or New York’s Igor Shesterkin, it’s probably the most volatile position in the sport.
Last year, Toronto’s goaltending tandem was rock solid, led by Anthony Stolarz’s .926 save percentage. This season, Stolarz is a much more pedestrian .893, and has missed significant time with injury.
Compatriot Joseph Woll has fared a little better with a .904 save percentage, but he also missed a large chunk of time at the start of the year on a personal leave of absence from the team (though it should be noted that Woll has arguably been the team’s best player for the last few weeks).
Coupled together with Berube’s system — which seemingly only works with phenomenal goaltending — and you have a recipe for a marked slide down the standings.
Their stars have been anything but
Don’t think we’re letting the rest of the team off the hook. It’s probably easier to list the skaters on Toronto’s roster who have exceeded expectations this season over those who haven’t — so let’s start by doing just that.
Veteran defenceman Oliver Ekman Larsson has turned back the clock with a 38-point season so far, rookie Easton Cowan has mostly acquitted himself well in the big leagues, and AHL call-up Bo Groulx has been a nice late-season story.
And … that’s kind of it.
Matthews is done for the season, but even before that, he was playing well below the 69-goal standard he set in 2023-24 — and not even close to living up to his salary as one of the highest-paid players in the league. His future with the team is a little murky, but if he stays, the Leafs had better hope it was Berube’s systems that were holding him back.
William Nylander leads the team with a respectable 71 points in 58 games, but his season has been marred by injury, questionable effort at times, and the baffling decision to flip off a camera crew on live TV during a broadcast back in January.
Morgan Rielly has been a defensive liability all season, with many fans clamouring for him to be shipped out of town, no-trade clause be damned. John Tavares is no longer one of the highest-paid players in the league and leads the team in goals with 28, but is being asked to do far too much at 35 years old.
Up and down the lineup and into the team’s office suites, the 2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs have not lived up to expectations.
And that’s why they sit in one of the least-enviable positions in sports — with an aging roster, and mostly bereft of draft picks or prospects coming down the pipeline to help out.
But hey … at least there’s always the Blue Jays?
