Joseph Woll<\/a> surprisingly disappeared in the first few days of camp and suddenly the whole of the workload was heaped on Anthony Stolarz, who only occasionally ceded the net to Cayden Primeau, both of whom struggled mightily behind a team that \u201clooked ugly.\u201d It was a brutal environment in which to play goal.<\/p>\nThen the injuries began, first to Scott Laughton (which somehow blew up all four lines), then Chris Tanev, and on to the captain Auston Matthews, to Matthew Knies and Brandon Carlo and Nicholas Roy. John Tavares \u2014 who has arguably been the Leafs’ most important player \u2014 was averaging about 23 minutes a night at one point, which I think most people would tell you is less than ideal, and the team floundered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d say \u201cfun fact\u201d to preface the following, but it\u2019s not that fun. So, fact: There have been zero games this season in which the Leafs scored first and then just kept leading until the end of the game. Not a single other team in the league can claim it hasn’t led wire-to-wire from the game\u2019s first goal until the end. (Three teams in the league have done it only once: the Canadiens, Senators and Flyers. Shout out to my guy Jason Murdoch of Sportsnet for these tidbits.)<\/p>\n
It’s become common to use U.S. Thanksgiving as this sort of official cut-off, as usually by this point of the season it\u2019s clear who\u2019s good and who isn\u2019t. Well, the day before that American holiday, as pie crusts were being prepared across the land of our southern neighbour, the Leafs sat dead last in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
But the whole \u201cIt\u2019s always darkest before the dawn\u201d thing seems particularly relevant here, as indicated by a board Sportsnet ran during the Columbus game:<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Screenshot-2025-11-28-at-2.01.24\u202fPM.png\")
<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been bad, but the season somehow hasn\u2019t gotten away from them, not entirely. They picked a good year to toe-pick out of the starting blocks.<\/p>\n
You can see a world where this turns. No, I don\u2019t think it happens on their current road trip (with four games against good teams left, a 2-2 outcome seems likely), but the pulled-from-the-ashes win against Columbus highlighted how Woll\u2019s return could buy them time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In that game, they saw the return of Matthews, Knies and Roy, and with nobody suffering a recurrence of injury, those guys have now got a game under their belt to help get their wind back and to find their stride.<\/p>\n
Now healthy, they\u2019re finally scratching those players most deserving, regardless of salary. In the pressbox on Friday, you\u2019re seeing Dakota Joshua, Matias Maccelli and possibly Max Domi. If there\u2019s a battle for the depth ice time, I like their odds of getting more out of those guys, who have more to give.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those guys, by the way, would by now have a much better idea of what to expect out of the Leafs system, linemates and coaching. And, hell, just the market in general. Like William Nylander demonstrates, it turns out life goes on if people say mean things about you online.<\/p>\n
I recognize Stolarz isn\u2019t yet back, but he\u2019s not supposed to be gone for too much longer. Given how Woll has played \u2014 and this is the key to it all \u2014 if they can get them going at the same time behind a healthier forward group, they\u2019re going to be in games every night, and you can see them finding their stride again.<\/p>\n
That stride isn\u2019t perfect. Last season, coach Craig Berube had them playing a style that many don\u2019t love watching. The idea is that you don\u2019t care if the other team has the puck, as long as it\u2019s out by the paint. You\u2019re playing the battle of the high-danger areas, trying to out-chance them in that regard, rather than just possessing the puck and taking meaningless shots. Last season, the Leafs showed they could play this way: get high-danger looks, prevent more than you get and get great goaltending.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most would agree that this roster can\u2019t win a Stanley Cup playing like that. But they\u2019ve shown they can win enough to make some noise with that style, just last season. At least that version of their game should still be attainable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019re obviously still battling. The problem with starting poorly is that you lose your safety net. If they never get fully healthy and succumb to more injuries, it could turf their playoff hopes. If Stolarz is out long term and this whole thing falls on Woll, it could hurt his play, and they could be in trouble.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s a high-wire act from here, balancing as they walk above the gorge that is the missed playoff abyss, a journey they\u2019ve successfully completed nine straight years. As they try to get there a 10th time, it\u2019s not tough to see it happening. They\u2019ve done it so many times before. But any misstep now means it\u2019s over, and when you miss the playoffs once, it gets awfully hard to get back to the top of the ridge to start the journey the next time.<\/p>\n
But next year is next year, and this Leafs team \u2014 and management team \u2014 is focusing on getting back to good this very season. The march to U.S. Thanksgiving hasn\u2019t been promising, but there\u2019s reason to believe there\u2019s better days ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Neither the eye test nor the numbers like the start the Leafs have had to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-312945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Real](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SNPodcast_RealKyperBourne_1280x720-640x360.jpg\")
Real Kyper and Bourne<\/p>\n