If you’re a team trying to win the Stanley Cup from the Eastern Conference, it wouldn’t make sense to concern yourself with the West. Yes, they’ve got a couple of the most loaded teams, but by the time you work through the playoffs, almost anything can happen. Players get physically worn down, goaltenders get hot, and bounces happen.
And so, you’d be wise to focus on getting through the East. What’s crazy is that it’s almost February, and it looks like there’s at least a half-dozen teams you could see pulling it off, and another handful that could add themselves to that group with some buying at the deadline. It’s going to be extremely tight, and playoff series could come down to the most marginal of differences.
Close observers of the Toronto Maple Leafs will be aware that they will be a buyer, and that they won’t be alone. Cup-hopeful teams at this time of year should know that marginally improving with a small add or two simply means you keep pace with the most competitive pack, you don’t pull away. The one year the Leafs went legitimately big (adding Ryan O’Reilly) was the one time they had first-round success, and they needed three OT winners to get there. It mattered.
To be a breath away from first-round success in other years – particularly last year – speaks to what being slightly more aggressive at the deadline could’ve done. At the 2024 deadline, the Leafs added Connor Dewar, Ilya Lyubushkin, and Joel Edmundson, then finished one goal short of a Game 7 win in the opening round..
Could a higher profile pick-up have pushed them over the hump?
If you’re Leafs management, you might get defensive at the implication, because after all, who could’ve predicted the team’s woefully timed injury luck, with Auston Matthews forced to miss games and being a diminished version of himself when he returned. William Nylander missed games, too. And then there was the quiet story (which was a low-key big deal), that Bobby McMann played right up until April 13 for the Leafs during his red-hot second half, then simply wasn’t available due to a knee injury for all of the playoffs. The Leafs couldn’t score when they needed goals, and the guy who had just scored 12 times in the two months prior disappeared from the public eye.
During that same series versus the Boston Bruins, Joseph Woll had just wrested the crease from Ilya Samsonov and was one second away from a Game 6 shutout when a desperation attempt on a meaningless last-second play messed his back up to the point he couldn’t dress for the deciding game.
Does Game 7 go differently if he’s available?
It sure would’ve been nice to find out.
As we head toward the 2025 NHL trade deadline, the Leafs have to plan for some injuries, namely at forward. As much or more than any team with big aspirations this year, their best, most important players are prone to injury. They can’t risk working all year towards a goal only to have it submarined by something that’s shown itself to be a recurring issue throughout the season. If the 82-game schedule is a lab in which to guess and test various roster hypotheses, surely they’ve learned they can’t plan on being healthy.
Waking up about six weeks shy of the trade deadline and three months from the start of the layoffs, the Leafs find themselves narrowly in first place in the Atlantic, but well back of East-leading Washington, therefore staring square in the face of playing the top wild-card team.
That’s likely to be a good team which will have fought tooth and nail down the stretch, winning enough games to climb atop the heap of contenders trying to get in. That team likely will have made deadline additions, too.
The Leafs will need more, particularly if someone gets hurt.
Right now, Matthews is more or less “back.” He’s scored at just about a goal-per-game rate over the past 10 games and has had a few nights where he’s the main paddle that moves the canoe. But he’s also spent most of the season well below the Hart Trophy version of himself and has twice missed stretches of games with what we believe to be a bad back. Who knows when that may flare up again.
A quick overview:
Auston Matthews: Back (unconfirmed).
Matthew Knies: Took a routine check on Wednesday against Columbus and left the game. While he’s suffered two head injuries, it’s not yet clear what this one is. Still, no guarantee you get him for 25-plus playoff games.
Bobby McMann: Would’ve been in the NHL sooner were it not for spells of frustrating injury luck in the AHL, followed by missing all of the playoffs last year with a bad knee. Has missed a few games this season. Maybe he’s been unlucky, but it’s been a trend in his pro career thus far.
Max Pacioretty: He was only available to the Leafs due to his past injuries, and has games-played bonuses in his contract due to the injury concerns.
Joseph Woll: Twice has been lost to seemingly non-contact plays; injuries slowed his ascent to the NHL as well.
Anthony Stolarz: Fresh off knee surgery, and has had knee issues in the past, his availability will constantly be a question mark.
John Tavares has been extremely healthy as a Leaf, but isn’t getting younger. You hope this current injury is a one-off. Nick Robertson has had a handful of injuries, including one that required shoulder surgery in 2023, while Connor Dewar has battled through off-season surgery and is hurt again.
Yes, Chris Tanev blocks a ton of shots and that’s scary, and yes, Connor Timmins has been injury-prone in his career, but the concerns mostly are up front and in net. And since you’re not doing anything about the goalies except wishing on a star for their health (you just need one to be OK), this is really about the forwards.
And not just “forwards,” but “forwards who regularly play inside the top-six,” which would include Matthews, Knies, McMann, more recently, and Pacioretty for good stretches of time.
For awhile, everything I was told about the Leafs was that they didn’t really want to go big game hunting. But my co-host on Real Kyper and Bourne has been hearing differently as of late, and I’m hoping the information he’s getting now is correct, as it typically is. Fans would love for them to try to bring back O’Reilly or Nazem Kadri, or even better, to bring in Dylan Cozens from Buffalo (a long, long, long-shot that Kyper mentioned on our Wednesday show).
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There are some good options out there if they’re going to take a swing. Brock Nelson would be great. While Boston almost certainly wouldn’t want to trade with them, Charlie Coyle would be a big add, and even Trent Frederic would help. We’re getting to the lower end now, but names like Yanni Gourde and Scott Laughton are appealing too, and likely leave other moves possible.
Whatever it is the Leafs think of their team, they can’t overlook the apparent fragility at the top of their lineup. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but you need to be prepared if things don’t go perfectly. They’re a legitimately good team with elite difference makers in a year with the most parity of any I can remember. They’ve got as good a chance as just about anybody in the East, so when all the buyers take that inevitable step forward at the deadline, the Leafs need to make a healthy leap.
