Early analysis: What are this year's Maple Leafs?

On Monday’s edition of Real Kyper and Bourne, when the Toronto Maple Leafs were fresh off a disheartening 4-1 Saturday loss to the New York Islanders, I made a comment to Kyper that I hoped would be played back for me later in the season, but for positive reasons: I said that I believed this would be the low point of Toronto's season. That at 3-4-2, and dead last in the Atlantic, my neighbour who said this was “another lost season” may have been overreacting.

Why did I say that? 

Well “talent” mostly. The Leafs have plenty of it. This league goes in fits and starts with its intensity levels across the season, but out of the gates everyone still has a chance, everyone is alive. You get under-talented teams playing motivated, hopeful hockey. You get young players still scrapping to make the roster, veterans jockeying for the good linemates and special teams spots and ice time. You get new and old coaches alike pouring through video and leaning on their guys to get off to a good start. 

Sometimes in hockey under-talented teams can be in the right places and can grind better teams to close games, so anyone can win any night. The Leafs played to one-goal finishes in seven of their first eight games.

The problem for those teams punching above their weight is that it isn’t sustainable. Call-ups from the AHL can look great for a night, but rarely an entire season. That’s the small-scale version of what I’m talking about. As the year goes on and teams settle in, they may take their foot five per cent off the gas. They travel, they get sick, they get hurt and they get tired, so there’s a lot of hockey from now until March where the teams with more talent just find a way to make a few more plays and win games on that alone.

As far as how this relates to the Leafs, they have a deeper roster of playmaking talent than they did last year, and in fact have more of that than about half the league.

On Tuesday night against Columbus, the Leafs got their first win this season against an opponent they just have more talent than, and that talent showed up. The Blue Jackets have a star defenceman in Zach Werenski, but their best forward (Adam Fantilli) didn't crack Sportsnet’s “50 best players” heading into the 2026-27 season.

Auston Matthews had a casual one-and-one for two more points (he's up to second in the league with 18 in 11 games), as did William Nylander. Toronto's complementary skill players (Easton Cowan, Jack Roslovic, Kirill Marchenko, Gavin McKenna) had a good night and the game was effectively over with 30 minutes still to play.

This is not to say the Leafs are amazing, but it's clear they're more than a sub-.500 roster (as long as it stays mostly healthy), and I expect them to be in the playoff fight up to the very last week. 

So after 11 games, that’s what I think I know about this Leafs team: they’re going to skill their way to some wins. From there, let’s talk about four other things about this team, and we’ll start to get a sense of what we’re set to watch as they push to return to the post-season this year.

1. Without Tanev, the defence corps is a legitimate problem

That’s the nice way to phrase it, as the D-corps with Tanev isn’t exactly great either. For it to be good this year the Leafs needed:

• A healthy Tanev

• Last year’s Oliver Ekman-Larsson

• Last year’s Jake McCabe

• Darren Raddysh to be very good

• A re-energized and optimized Morgan Rielly

Of those, they’ve got Raddysh supplying good play in huge minutes, and you could argue Rielly has been slightly better after he's put up two good games in a row. 

But Tanev got hurt, and both McCabe and OEL — who’ve taken a beating the past couple seasons — look a step behind. Suddenly Troy Stecher is arguably one of their most important defencemen — and he’s been great — which is indeed some kind of sentence. 

The Leafs' possession numbers will get buried if they can’t break the puck out of their zone, and their goalies' lives will be hell if they can’t box out in front. Both of these things are issues right now.

If I gave you the choice of this Leafs blue line or any other in the Eastern Conference, there are not many teams you wouldn’t immediately swap with. If you’ve got a blue line that ranks in the bottom few, life gets really hard. There’s talk about John Chayka making a trade or two to help it out, and if the Leafs are going to make the playoffs, it might hinge on that happening sooner than later.

Heaven help them if McCabe’s injury isn’t a quick fix.

2. Their special teams success (top-five PP, No. 1 PK) is generally sustainable

Through 11 games and 38 minor penalties, the Leafs are even on the penalty kill. One goal against, one goal for. That is obviously not what's sustainable here.

That said, they do legitimately have the horses to have a top-10 (maybe top-five?) penalty kill in the league, with new additions Colton Sissons, Nick Paul, Brandon Duhaime and Teddy Blueger. Matthews can kill too, and they’re using Easton Cowan in that role, as well as Nylander in the final 30 seconds when the opposition gets sleepy (which has led to chances for Toronto).

Stecher, McCabe, OEL, these defencemen are naturally good PK guys, even if they aren’t electric at 5-on-5. Sergei Bobrovsky still moves well laterally, and can be a big part of it too. They can be good here.

On the power play they’re as loaded as any team in the NHL. All five of their PP1 guys are legitimate weapons, and there are still more sitting on the bench (particularly when John Tavares returns and the power play plan for Gavin McKenna gets murky). 

If they do what they’ve been doing so far -- rotating throughout the five spots on the 1-3-1 and not getting stagnant -- they’ll be able to take advantage of broken plays and seams as well as any unit in the league. They should be a top-10 power play without any issue. 

3. Their forwards aren’t the “inside” types

One offensive concern is that the Leafs haven’t actually created as much to the inside as you’d like to see to call their offensive play “sustainable.” They’re way better at generating offensive zone time than last season, but a lot of it gets pinned to the outside walls. The Islanders didn’t let them get in, so they were content to stay outside. 

What that means is you probably need at least one of the “inside” types on each line. Paul, Tavares (when healthy), Sissons, Duhaime and Blueger fit this mould, but outside of them Toronto primarily has perimeter types. Matthews can get inside, but won’t park and stay there in a way that forces the defence to the net, and thus opens up room to the outside. He’s like a hybrid in that he flies through the net-front, but keeps moving.

This may be random after a day where Roslovic made a great pass to Matthews and looked good, but it might be fun to see Matthews with some mix like McKenna and Paul. Let Paul be huge at the net and forecheck, while McKenna and Matthews do their thing. 

It’s no coincidence that every “perfect line” I try to make right now involves Paul, who’s been a huge bright spot for Toronto thus far. Here are some insane lines I put together (when healthy), because making lines is fun:

McKenna – Matthews – Paul
Marchenko – Sissons – Nylander
Cowan – Tavares – Roslovic
Duhaime – Blueger – MacEwen

Not sure about that third line, but Tavares with Marchenko/Nylander is a defensive problem. 

One more random note: I’ve really like Zack MacEwen, who’s a perfectly cromulent fourth line heavy/energy guy. He should be on the NHL roster all year as their 13^th forward when healthy.

4. The goaltending should be about league average 

By all-strengths save percentage the Leafs sit above average at 10^th, which is roughly on the better end of what should be expected. But Bobrovsky looks healthy and consistent, giving up about one “hmm maybe he could’ve had that” goal per game, while making a couple “I’m not sure how many other guys would save that” saves per game. 

Sportlogiq has Bobrovsky 10^th in goals saved above expected (saving about three goals more than a league-average goalie would be expected to), and 15^th in the same stat as a “per game” rate. Stolarz is also back on the right side of the numbers, a whisper better than average.

And finally,

Something I don’t know:

1. What Hiller is going to be like as a coach

As the team searches for its identity, it’s also not yet clear what Hiller’s will be as a coach. The promise going into the year was to better embrace offence, and they’ve done that, though I also think a big part of the reason why is because the roster is just more talented.

The handling of McKenna has been notable and well-discussed. When Toronto was up 5-1 Tuesday night the rookie got two shifts in the second period, and just two in the third until the final few minutes when it was clear the game was over so he got out a few times in the final minutes. These seem like good moments to get him involved, and to gain experience.

But otherwise I feel like Hiller's done a good job with the lines and defence pairs. I love the move to add Nylander and Cowan at the end of penalty kills. I like how the goalies have been handled. 

I think he’s doing a fine job so far, but as the team searches for its strengths, Hiller’s searching too. There’s plenty of hope they could find it together, as they’ve had both wins and adversity already in the early going. 

Roster changes may help things yet, but this team was essentially a group of strangers a month ago, and it’s clear they already have the potential to be a handful for their opposition on any given night.