On the one hand, the Maple Leafs were swept by Detroit in the season series tonight, and that will cost them in the standings throughout the rest of the campaign.

On the other hand, in a game where the Leafs played with five defensemen nearly all night due to OEL’s injury-related departure, their leading scorer was missing, and Matthew Knies continued to plod along — leaving the game at one point — it took Detroit until overtime to put them away. 

It’s a point gained, but it’s also an opportunity lost. The Leafs went from struggling to solve John Gibson to hanging on for dear life for an entire period. I’m not sure the Leafs deserved to win, but I’m not sure Detroit did, either. The Red Wings entered this game fully healthy — as they have been all season — and needed a great performance from their goalie for most of the night to eke out a win. 

Coming off a thoroughly poor showing against the Minnesota Wild, the expectation was that the Leafs should’ve come out flying and probably a little pissed off. Add in playing a division rival who has beaten them three times already this season, and it should’ve been an easy game to get up for.

And yet, the Leafs really didn’t get off to a fast start. Detroit carried play the first few shifts of the game, save for when Auston Matthews made a nice slip play by Dylan Larkin and fired a great shot in the slot (Gibson looked behind his back immediately after the shot). Other than Matthews, the Leafs didn’t have much going the first few shifts, but then they got a fortuitous bounce.

After Scott Laughton made a good read to cut off a far-side rim and keep the puck in the Detroit end, Steven Lorentz centered it to Calle Jarnkrok in the slot for a one-timer. Jarnkrok heeled the shot, but luckily, he heeled it right to Laughton on the backside for an empty-net finish to make it 1-0 just under five minutes into the period. That assist — an accident — was Jarnkrok’s very first helper of the season, as he was previously sitting on six goals and nothing else through his first 30 games.

Right after the Leafs opened the scoring, their third line was immediately dominated. At the end of the long shift, the Leafs got it deep, where Easton Cowan tried to make something out of nothing and took an offensive-zone penalty. That’s now five penalties in the last nine games for Cowan, almost all of them bad and several of them coming in the offensive zone. He’s trying to make things happen, and the effort is there, but it’s misplaced, and it’s officially a common occurrence at this point. 

Fortunately for Cowan, Joseph Woll stood tall on the penalty kill, making several grade-A stops in the slot. From there, the Leafs generally carried the chances. Morgan Rielly made a nice toe-drag move on a 2v1. Nic Roy hit the post and was sent in all alone for another chance, where he couldn’t pull it to his backhand cleanly. John Tavares made a nice power move off the rush. The Leafs had no problem creating, but when the puck was in their end, it was often a mess. 

Woll stood tall in one sequence where essentially every player but the Detroit defensemen was piled up in his crease. Brandon Carlo saved an empty-net goal with his ass. The chaotic sequence in the crease happened in the final minute of the period, but the Leafs survived it and had an offensive-zone faceoff afterward with under 30 seconds left. At that point, the Leafs should’ve survived the Red Wing push to take a lead into the intermission.

The top line and defense pairing had other plans. On a scrummed faceoff, the puck kicked out to the wall, where Max Domi rightfully went after it. Both Bobby McMann and Auston Matthews stood behind the puck when at least one of them needed to pull up high between the puck and the Leafs’ net. That’s basic hockey.

Matthews, in particular, needed to start pulling high at this point. There’s a battle underway, and if the Leafs lose it, it’s a 3v2 the other way. Instead, he stood around, hoping Domi would win a battle for a scoring chance. Matthews is 28 years old now, the team is up 1-0, and they needed to close the period. This is basic situational awareness. Play the right way. 

Making matters worse, when the puck turned over, neither Matthews nor McMann skated back hard. Raymond would have potentially run out of space with proper positioning and backchecking. Instead, he grabbed the puck with some time and space and found a trailing Simon Edvinsson for a prime slot shot that he buried. 

This was awful, awful hockey — no detail, a freebie, and the type of thing bad hockey teams do in a late-period situation.

To the Leafs’ credit, they did muster a reasonable response in the second period. Nick Robertson found Morgan Rielly right in the slot for a one-timer, and then they drew their first power play of the game. The PP generated all sorts of chances, recording five shots and doing everything but scoring, including a Tavares side-of-the-net tip play.

After the power play, the Leafs went on a 2v1 with Maccelli and Matthews, in which Maccelli actually kept it and shot it (center pad, no less), before drawing another power play. 

After a broken Detroit stick made it a 5v3.5, Matthews ripped a one-timer off Gibson’s shoulder and then cut in with all sorts of net to shoot at in the top corner, but he missed the net by multiple feet. 

Some bad habits started to creep in for the Leafs as the period went along — namely, a sequence in which Maccelli skated through the neutral zone and didn’t get it deep or make a pass on the tape, leading to a turnover. When the Leafs got it back in the zone, a pass went up to Knies, who couldn’t handle a pass right on his tape, although he had no issue getting off the ice while his defense pairing was stuck out there. Eventually, Troy Stecher’s stick broke, Jarnkrok gave him his, and the stick-less Jarnkrok took a penalty.  

The Leafs not only killed it off but drew a penalty shot in which Laughton made a particularly poor attempt, coming in slowly and losing the handle, the worst of both worlds. When the penalty expired, Matthews swooped in and ripped a pass to Knies, who couldn’t bear down. 

A big hit by Simon Benoit concluded a second period in which the Wings were quite fortunate to remain tied. The Leafs produced all sorts of quality looks, but their shooters couldn’t solve a dialed-in John Gibson.

With five defensemen, no Nylander, and Knies leaving the bench for some time, the Leafs’ wheels fell off in the third period. Shot attempts were 29-9 for Detroit as the Leafs just held on for dear life. Shots were 12-2 just halfway through the period, although the Leafs did create a few chances late on. Tavares was all alone, but it rolled off his backhand. Matthews had a look off the rush, but Moritz Seider poked it off of him.

It’s understandable that the Leafs’ defense was gassed, but there were no excuses for the forward group. They didn’t win any battles to get pucks out, they didn’t forecheck effectively, and they didn’t spell the defense in any capacity. When the team needed the forward corps to step up and stack some shifts, all they did was fold while Detroit tilted the ice.

The Red Wings continued to outplay the Leafs in overtime, and after surviving a nightmare Maccelli-Robertson-Rielly shift (gee, can’t believe that didn’t work out!), Matthews had one really good scoring chance before Craig Berube trotted out Easton Cowan for a shift. Cowan was overpowered by Moritz Seider, and Dylan Larkin scored on a breakaway. 

The Leafs are now 7-8 in overtime. At this rate, if they miss the playoffs by season’s end, it’s increasingly looking like three-on-three OT will be a major reason why.

Post-Game Notes

– Easton Cowan will receive a lot of negative attention after this game for a bad penalty, a bad turnover, and generally ineffective play. It’s really on the coaching staff and management, though, not a 20-year-old kid. Only Steven Lorentz played less than Cowan tonight; Cowan had no business seeing the ice in overtime in the first place. In 2026, he’s yet to hit even the 14-minute mark, and the ice time limits have been deserved. We noted the penalty trouble already above, but he’s making a lot of rookie mistakes. That will happen to any first-year player, but it’s multiplied when it’s one who has spent zero time ironing out any issues in the AHL and is now seeing minutes in the NHL to work through them. We’re now watching limited-minute mistakes and hoping Cowan produces on the odd occasion to make up for it, while the Leafs are playing must-win games for the rest of the season. This is the development path the organization chose for him. 

– While he’s clearly trying to gut through an injury, Matthew Knies is now on his second eight-game goalless drought of the season. At one point in the second period, he missed the puck completely on a prime chance at the backdoor. He has just seven shots on net in those eight games, can’t forecheck with any consistency, and is obviously unable to give the team much of anything out there. You can respect a player for trying to play through it, but A) he shouldn’t have played vs. Minnesota at all (somehow, he actually played 19:11 in a game that was over by the halfway point), and B) At what point is the juice not worth the squeeze? If you’re playing, you’re playing. 

– Jake McCabe didn’t play the Red Wings’ goal well, but he did end up logging over 28 minutes and settled his game down to some degree. He’s a quality top-four defenseman, but you can only ask so much of him. Conversely, Brandon Carlo was credited with a team-leading four giveaways, which actually undersells his struggles tonight. He was a complete hazard all game, including some sequences in the third period where he was soft up the wall with the puck, effectively passing it to Detroit forecheckers. A defenseman can’t not make plays and also be soft up the wall. This was arguably Carlo’s worst game since returning from injury. 

– Scott Laughton’s line did well to soak up tough minutes to free up the other lines. Laughton actually played more against Seider than Matthews did in this game at five-on-five. Even still, the Matthews line was dreadful; out-attempted 19-10, and torched on the one Wings goal in regulation. Bobby McMann didn’t appear to have his legs at all and played under 15 minutes. 

– The fourth line scored and played against the Wings’ top players for most of the night without giving up a goal, while the Leafs’ two middle lines out-attempted the Wings 12-8 apiece. The top line was dominated and conceded a cheap goal in a 2-1 overtime loss. With William Nylander watching from the press box, the Leafs won’t win many games under those circumstances. At the end of the game, Berube sent out Tavares-Matthews-Knies to close the third rather than roll out his top line one more time. 

– With all of that going on, Cowan still saw an overtime shift over Laughton. The decision-making, as we have become accustomed to, is head-scratching. This is not hindsight; a bad process led to that decision. 

– We shouldn’t downplay that John Gibson was excellent in this game; the Leafs really did deserve the lead after the first 40 minutes. They had a ton of chances, and Gibson stood tall. At the other end, Joseph Woll played a great rebound game and deserved more goal support from his team. 

– There is more litmus-test decision-making from the coaching staff to come this week. Is Philippe Myers returning to the lineup on Friday? Is Jacob Quillan sitting in the press box once again?

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights: Red Wings 2 vs. Maple Leafs 1 (OT)

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