‘I wasn’t good enough’: Scott Laughton finding peace with life as a Maple Leaf

TORONTO — The trade out of the only NHL sweater he’d ever known. The pressure of delivering for his hometown team, after it shelled out a first-round pick and intriguing prospect to bring him in. The rush of post-season hockey after five long springs without.

For Scott Laughton, joining the Toronto Maple Leafs at full speed on deadline day was a lot.

A lot of stress. A lot of new. 

A lot of adjustment. A lot of criticism.

Also: A helluva lot of fun.

“It was a long time since I had the hair stick up on my arms, and you get that feeling,” says Laughton, standing outside the Maple Leafs’ west-end practice facility, a short commute from his Oakville, Ont., roots. 

The 12-year veteran is bubbling with a rookie’s excitement. 

“There’s nothing like it when you play in the playoffs and you get a chance to live out your dream of winning. And we were close,” he continues. “That’s in the past now, but that was just a cool, cool feeling.”

Play on enough crummy teams, slog through a rebuild or two, get bumped down the lineup more times than you can count, and your appreciation for meaningful shifts swells in the shadows.

No matter how desperately Laughton wanted to be a difference-maker, though, he struggled to find his niche in coach Craig Berube’s lineup. 

His puck luck turned all jinxes and hexes. He jetted to Denver hours after the swap, slipped on the blue and white and was dash-2 in a 7-4 blowout before he could blink. He didn’t register a point for his boyhood club until 10 games in and finished with just two goals and two assists in 20 regular-season appearances for Toronto.

“I wasn’t good enough last year. That’s the bottom line,” says Laughton, who posted a career-low minus-18 in 2024-25.

“It was hard. The hardest part was, for sure, leaving Philly. You grew up there, and we had our kid there, and everything like that. You build something there, and I think you’re so ingrained in being a Flyer. So, to come here was a different feeling.” 

Fiercely self-critical and refreshingly honest, Laughton needed these months after Game 7’s buzzer to come to grips with that feeling.

Laughton bought an old fixer-upper Muskoka cottage (“The maintenance guy was up there the other day and fell through the deck,” he says, chuckling) and slowed life down with his wife, Chloe, and their baby son, Reed.

As the morning steam wisped off the glassy lake, they’d put around in their pontoon boat — “a living room on the water,” he beams — to bask in the quiet.

A sharp contrast from the high-stakes, full-contact chaos of work and the din between his ears.

“It was nice to get up north just to kind of clear my head. I had a lot going on just within myself. I think you put a lot of pressure on yourself and your head’s kind of spinning. So, to take a couple of weeks just to yourself and to have that up there was really nice,” Laughton explains. 

“It’s a special place up there. It’s peaceful.”

And productive.

Laughton joined the pro training skates run by Sam Gagner in Bracebridge, Ont., and hit the gym with purpose.

Teammates and Leafs staffers have already noticed a more relaxed and chattier version of the player who once wielded one of the strongest voices in the Flyers’ dressing room.

Laughton, who wore an “A” in Philly, admits he was hesitant to speak up last spring as the new guy in Toronto.

“Your play has got to speak for itself. It was tough for me at the start, when I was trying to find my footing,” he says. “I was in a little bit of a shell and just a little bit stuck.”

Now, the 32-year-old is coming in refreshed and loose — and wise.

“To have a voice in the room, and I think it can carry. I’ve been in the league for a while. I’ve seen a lot of things, and been through some really tough times in Philly too. And not everything’s perfect,” Laughton says. “Guys are pretty lucky here. You make the playoffs a lot of years, and you can't take that for granted — to have a chance every single year.”

Skeptics of the Laughton trade will point to the first-week hype that ex-Leafs prospect Nikita Grebenkin is stirring in Flyers camp alongside Trevor Zegras and Matvei Michkov.

Defenders of the deal will remind that Laughton was no rental, that his performance in 2025-26 should weigh heavy in the trade verdict.

To that end, Berube will not only give the versatile Laughton a chance to lead Toronto’s fourth line, with likely opportunities to move up the bench, but a more prominent position on the penalty kill.

Laughton believes the PK drives his game. He has scored 10 shorthanded goals in his career and likes to create sneaky offence in four-on-five situations.

The plan is for righthanded centre Nicolas Roy and lefty Laughton to spell each other off for strong-side defensive draws.

“Take some load off Tone (Auston Matthews) and guys like that, so he doesn’t have to go out every single draw,” Laughton says.

Laughton’s ability to impact the Leafs will impact his bank account.

On track to be an unrestricted free agent, he’ll be gunning for a raise from his $3 million AAV this summer. But that’s a pressure for another day.

“I actually haven’t thought about it,” Laughton says. “You gotta be good and play to your potential. And whatever happens, happens. I’ve never hit free agency, so I don’t even know the feeling. So, I haven't even thought that far ahead. I just want to have a good start for our group and contribute where I can.”

A clean slate. Laughton’s first full season for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“It’s nice being in your hometown. I mean, it’s September, and you're still home, and you get to see family,” he says. 

“It’s a special feeling. I don’t take it for granted, that’s for sure. Something I take a lot of pride in is putting on this sweater and trying to be the best I can for this group.”