The rest of this 2025-26 Maple Leafs season will be a slog.
On the ice, there’s really nothing left to watch for or write about, as long as the same coaching staff is trotting out the same tired veteran combinations, predictably producing the same results night after night. There’s really no point in dissecting it.
I don’t know if the Leafs are attempting to tank or are simply falling ass backwards into it, but falling far enough to hopefully keep their 2026 first-round draft pick is quickly becoming the only source of hope. Short of that, there isn’t much point in keeping this coach around to finish out the string, as the team performs this badly in the final quarter of the season while he refuses to try anything or anyone new.
It’s actually unbelievable how far off the rails this season has gone. When the Leafs beat the Avalanche on January 12 — not that long ago — it put them back in a playoff spot. They sat 10th in the league in points and 12th in points percentage. While that’s not great by any stretch, it’s certainly “in the mix.”
Since then, it has been an utter freefall with a record of 4-11-4. Only the New York Rangers own a worse points percentage in that time, and even the Rangers beat the Leafs last week. In those 19 games, the Leafs conceded a ridiculous 81 goals; their 4.26 goals against per game rate is leaps and bounds higher than the next-highest mark of 3.94. At this point, it’s actually getting worse rather than showing even the slightest glimmer of improvement.
If the Leafs were attempting to compete, or frankly, were even a serious organization, they wouldn’t tolerate this. It was clear in November that Craig Berube had no answers. We wrote about it repeatedly in November and beyond, and at one point, we even debunked the ridiculous “the core players have had too many coaches” myth. The best attempt at salvaging the season should have come at his expense months ago. Now, it’s too late.
Berube clearly shouldn’t return next season — it would be shocking if he did — but at this point, keeping him might help the Leafs achieve what needs to be done to retain their first-round draft pick. I’ve generally pushed back against the idea that the Leafs could sink far enough into the bottom five. Despite being the second-worst team in the league for essentially a quarter of the season now, they are still six points behind the bottom five teams, and there are three teams between them and St. Louis (currently fifth-last in points). That’s a huge gap to close still, and the Leafs are running out of time.
If they don’t sink far enough, it leaves us with a rather grim offseason outlook. The organization doesn’t have any blue-chip prospects on the way (I like Ben Danford, but his ceiling isn’t that high; he’s 20 years old with 20 points in 40 games in the OHL). It’s a distinct possibility that the team will suffer through a miserable season only to enter a draft in which their first selection is in the third round. They will then need to work through a roster where essentially every player on it experienced a down season, while the players they moved out at the deadline are already paying immediate dividends for their new teams (hmm, what could be the common denominator there!?).
There will be talk about rebuilding, but it will be very, very difficult to pull off. They aren’t maximizing value for Auston Matthews after a season where Drake Batherson, among many others, is straight up outproducing the Leafs’ once-69-goal-scorer. The team is also guaranteed to lose its first-round pick in one of the next two drafts (working off the assumption Boston keeps Toronto’s pick this year). Collecting mid-to-late first-round picks to draft the next Rasmus Sandin, Timothy Liljegren, etc., is not “rebuilding” in any real capacity. It would largely look like the Leafs playing bad hockey while waiting to regain full control of their draft picks.
Navigating losing two first-round draft picks over the next three drafts will be extremely difficult, no matter how we slice it. It’s now an exercise of making the best of a bad situation.
“Tank and Pray” Mode Activated
If the Leafs keep their draft pick this year, it might be the only situation where a clear and logical path forward exists. It would give the Leafs the following picks this summer: 1, 3 (that can still become a 2), 3, 4, 5, 5, 6. It’s not an exceptional draft pick cupboard, but it’s a full draft class, along with an opportunity to select a top prospect. It would be a worthy reward at the end of this grueling season, something to genuinely look forward to and build on.
While it would guarantee that the Leafs don’t own their first-round draft pick in each of the subsequent drafts, they do at least possess a full stable of picks in both of those classes. In 2027: 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7. In 2028: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7.
The most glass-half-full take I could possibly concoct: The Leafs sink low enough to draft a top prospect, said prospect makes the team immediately, and it gives them a real shot of energy and upside, reverberating across the roster as they wipe the slate clean. This should also come with a new coaching staff and management group, which, if they are even at baseline-level competence, will be a significant upgrade. In all likelihood, many players will enjoy rebound seasons as a result, and it should translate into not relinquishing a very high, game-changing pick in 2027 while still picking a full class of players at the draft.
Even in the event that the Leafs don’t rebound next season in this scenario, they would sell and have their top prospect from 2026 to build around, along with Matthew Knies, Easton Cowan, Dennis Hildeby, Ben Danford, and whoever else emerges from the prospect ranks, plus a full class of picks in the 2027 draft (which they would presumably continue to add capital to).
All things considered, I see little downside to that ideal situation either way, short of the team badly struggling on the ice again and giving Boston and Philadelphia successive top-five picks. But I’m personally betting that the team wouldn’t be this bad again with a proper coach, a good young player injected into the lineup, and a few strong offseason additions/subtractions.
The way this season is ending will cast a rather bleak outlook on the team, but the Leafs never once played a proper system or one game with a fully healthy lineup, and 45 games into the schedule, they were in a playoff spot. Almost none of their players have had a good individual season. The low-hanging fruit is endless. There are a lot of problems, and it won’t be a simple proposition to turn it around next season, but this isn’t the Vancouver Canucks, either.
However, my glass-half-full scenario hinges on the team all but losing out the rest of the way and praying the lottery balls break their way. It’s not a great feeling, and it is a rather powerless situation. The losing part might be the easiest part of the whole equation with Berube still in charge, trotting out the same old line combinations (maybe that’s even on purpose now, although it feels completely in line with his entire tenure to date, more than an intentional act of sabotage). The teams beneath them will need to win some games and surpass them as well.
Maybe this is their plan, though, because the trade deadline offered absolutely nothing of note. They traded three reasonable-to-good players, got some draft picks back, and that was it. They didn’t clear any of the net-negative players who should be removed from the roster at this point (we all know who they are), nor did they add a single body. The head coach is somehow still employed. They won’t come out and declare their intent to straight-up tank, but there’s an argument to be made at this point that they are simply playing to lose and are hoping to keep their pick. They didn’t even really add draft selections in the upcoming draft, largely settling for restocking their 2027 cupboard instead.
It would punt the issue of losing those picks down the road — and I am generally more of an advocate of getting it over with and giving up the picks as soon as possible — but it’s the situation they’re probably best set up for now, in part because of how disappointing the trade deadline was. It’s hard to fathom this campaign ending in Boston drafting top 10 while the Leafs don’t draft until the third round. They need to retain their pick, or it’s really a flat-out disaster.
In the meantime, we’ll work through how to cover the rest of this season, which likely nobody wants to read about or watch. At the very least, the fans need something to cheer for, and while none of this is remotely ideal (given the draft-pick situation), successfully tanking this season appears to be the best-case scenario.