Essentially all projections for the Toronto Maple Leafs coming into this season were forecasting a step back.
Most had them dipping 7-10 points from last season’s charmed 108-point, Atlantic Division-winning campaign, meaning they would still be firmly a playoff team but not nearly as formidable as their record said they were in 2024-25.
Forty-one games later, it appears that the preseason forecasts were awfully optimistic.
The Leafs hit the season’s halfway point this week as the NHL’s 17th best team, tied with the Anaheim Ducks, and on a 90-point pace. Toronto has scored exactly as many goals as they’ve allowed — 3.34 per game — and been brutal on one special team (the PP) and solid on the other (the PK). After a tough start, their goaltending has risen to middle of the pack, in part thanks to a surprising showing from third-string rookie Dennis Hildeby in 15 games.
Injuries have been a factor, with Toronto owning one of the NHL’s most active IRs, but the reality is the Leafs also haven’t weathered those absences well. In fact, injuries have helped to highlight how little depth the organization has, especially on defence, where they would likely be lost without Troy Stecher’s miraculous top-four contributions after being claimed on waivers from Edmonton 22 games ago.
If you want to accentuate the positives, the biggest is how much better the Leafs have been the past six weeks. Since going 4-1-0 on a difficult five-game road trip that looked like it might sink their season in late November and early December, Toronto is 10-5-4 — a 104-point pace that ranks fourth in the East and eighth in the NHL over that span.
If they can continue to put up points that frequently the rest of the way, they would climb up to 97 points by season’s end, which would almost certainly mean a playoff berth and possibly even third place in the Atlantic.
That’s the good news.
The big questions: Is this who they really are? Do we disregard how horribly they played in the first 22 games?
While they’ve played most of their best games in this 19-game span, they’ve also mixed in their fair share of turds, including tough losses to the Washington Capitals, San Jose Sharks, Edmonton Oilers and Nashville Predators.
Even if we use this arbitrary stretch of 19 games (which feels like engaging in a bit of “fun with end points”), there are troubling signs. They’ve been the fourth-worst possession team at even strength during this run (45.6 percent) and only league-average in high-danger chances share at five-on-five. At least some of this hot streak also appears to be good fortune, with the Leafs riding the fourth-best shooting percentage and third-best save percentage in all situations.
Turning these improved six weeks into something more and finding a way to maintain this level of play for another three months is going to mean playing far more games like they did in shutting out the New Jersey Devils last week. But seeing that version of the Leafs for a full 60 minutes has been a real rarity.
This biggest X-factor is likely Auston Matthews, who’s been one of the NHL’s best players coming out of the Christmas break with six goals and 10 points in four games. If he can go on the kind of heater he did two years ago, converting on 20 percent of his shots from here through April, it could mean 30-plus goals in the second half, which would be a massive boost to Toronto’s offence.
That the power play is finally showing life post-Marc Savard, and Hildeby and Joseph Woll have both been well above average (.918 and .914 save percentages during this stretch) in goal, are also potential game-changers.
That said, the most likely outcome isn’t ideal. It involves the Leafs hanging around the periphery of a crowded playoff race in the East by the March 6 trade deadline, and GM Brad Treliving’s hands being effectively tied when it comes to trying to add a difference-maker (or selling off assets).
This isn’t going to be another deadline where the future is mortgaged for rentals, not when the Leafs (a) lack assets to trade, (b) haven’t shown they’re contenders (or are even going to be better than 50-50 to make the playoffs) and (c) have a front office that very well may not survive the offseason.
It feels like they’ll be stuck in the no man’s land of being neither buyer nor seller, left in the uncomfortable position of watching teams ahead of them in the standings with more established playoff positioning bolster their rosters while they soldier ahead with a hole-filled roster, crossing their fingers that it will be enough.
While the Leafs have been far easier to watch over these last six weeks, looking more like the roughly 10th-place team they were projected to be back in September, this resurgence also likely means the most difficult questions are getting punted to April. If they miss the playoffs, there’s likely a major house-clearing coming. If they make it — which is only a 35 percent probability at the moment — they’ll likely be the underdogs in a difficult first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning or Carolina Hurricanes.
Toronto has 16 games crammed into 29 days (?!) before the Olympic break, and I suspect this stretch will be incredibly telling. After flailing through an easy, home-heavy early schedule, the Leafs now face the daunting task of playing a quarter of these games against the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights, with additional matchups with the Florida Panthers (on Tuesday night), Minnesota Wild, Oilers and red-hot Buffalo Sabres.
If these past 19 games are real and an indicator of what this Leafs team can be, they have to show they can hold their head above water against some of these better teams, on the road, on little rest and without some key personnel.
It’s a lot to ask of this diminished group — without Chris Tanev, Anthony Stolarz and Mitch Marner, and with a conservative playstyle that doesn’t often play to the roster’s strengths. It’s all about to be tested more than it has to date, and I suspect by the break for Milan we’ll have a much better idea of if they can pull it off — or if it’ll be time to focus on retooling into something new.
Pretty big stakes for games in January.
