Do the Toronto Maple Leafs have a Plan B for this NHL season?
The 2025–2026 version of Toronto hockey, coming off a second round postseason clash with the Florida Panthers last spring, offered hope to the Maple Leafs’ fan base for this season. Toronto took the Panthers, winners of the last two Stanley Cups, to a Game 7 played at the Maple Leafs’ home rink. The 6–1 defeat by Florida was a painful sendoff to an off-season, after Toronto compiled a 52–26 during the regular schedule.
Scotiabank Arena in downtown Toronto is a symbol of hope, where Maple Leafs players and fans each fall convince themselves that this is going to be the year that Lord Stanley’s hardware is coming to Ontario. Then, routinely, disappointment sets in.
It’s looking less and less like the drought of an NHL championship coming to Toronto will end this year. Not since 1967 have the Maple Leafs been crowned “Kings of the NHL.”
Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) is the corporate owner of Toronto’s hockey team. This past May, MLSE chose not to renew the contract of Brendan Shanahan. During his 11 seasons as the Maple Leafs’ president, the team never progressed past the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. In Shanahan’s absence, Brad Treliving, current Maple Leafs general manager, reports directly to MLSE President and CEO Keith Pelley. The “Shanaplan” era of Maple Leafs hockey ended eight months ago. The results on the ice haven’t improved.
Looking deeper in the performances turned in so far this season by Toronto, the team is in 15th place among 16 teams in the Eastern Conference. The Maple Leafs don’t qualify for a Wild Card postseason position, if the season were to end today.
With just three games to skate before the first half of the NHL season is officially in the record books, and with the Olympic break coming in February, there is little time left for the Maple Leafs to get on track and make up games on division leaders. Perhaps MLSE needs to draft an apology to Shanahan? Apparently his job performance wasn’t what was holding the team back. Sunday’s game, an overtime defeat by Detroit at Little Caesars Arena, wasn’t decided by the top stars of Toronto. Nicholas Robertson and Matthew Knies put the puck in the net in the losing cause. Auston Matthews and John Tavares were shut out by Red Wings goalie Cam Talbot. William Nylander was a scratch for the game while nursing a lower-body injury suffered during Saturday’s 7–5 win over the Ottawa Senators.
With Nylander’s condition seen as day-to-day, the Maple Leafs are without their leading scorer (41 points), who will be missing from coach Craig Berube’s lineup for any substantial number of games. This would make the rest of the offense have to work harder at putting pucks in the net. Nylander, 29, who in January 2024 inked an eight-year contract with Toronto, is the engine that makes the team compete on all cylinders. Asking Maple Leafs fans for more patience, hoping the team gets back on a winning track, is akin to having a tooth pulled, minus the Novocaine shot.
With Treliving reporting to MLSE’s Pelley directly, both Toronto’s general manager and Berube have to be on short leashes when it comes to their job security. Even though Berube signed for four years back in May 2024, and given that in 2019 he steered the St. Louis Blues to a Stanley Cup title, another disappointing Maple Leafs season and he could find himself in the same position as Shanahan. What could salvage Toronto’s schedule is what Treliving decides to do on Friday, March 6, by 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Following the trade tracker, up until the last minute, on Trade Deadline Day will tell whether Toronto is a seller of players or buying players, in anticipation of making a run in the playoffs.
The once heralded “Core Four”—Matthews, Tavares, Nylander, and Mitch Marner—are no more. This was the unit that was expected to finally break the curse and bring the Cup home to Toronto. Last July, Marner signed an eight-year, $96 million contract with Toronto, who then quickly traded him to the Vegas Golden Knights for center Nicolas Roy. The sign-and-trade agreement subtracted 102 points, which Marner earned last season, from this year’s Maple Leafs offense. Roy, so far this season for Toronto, has registered 12 points.
There is ample room for the proverbial hockey “chopping block” in Toronto if the Maple Leafs fail to post for the playoffs. The “wait until next year” motto is outdated among the Maple Leafs faithful. The team has a half season to get their act together, or there will likely be consequences to be paid on March 6.
