Toronto Maple Leafs All-Time Games Played Champions

The Toronto Maple Leafs, as an Original Six NHL team, are one of the oldest professional sports franchises in North America.

In recent weeks, with nothing much better to do while we wait for the 2021 NHL season to begin, we’ve been going through some of the all-time leaders for the Toronto Maple Leafs in various categories.

First we tackled goals, where we learned that Auston Matthews is rocketing up the charts and will, in fast fashion, be entering the upper stratosphere of the list in just  a few more short season. At his current pace, Matthews will match current leader, Mats Sundin, in about 220 fewer games. 

Next we viewed the Leafs all-time scoring list, yet again led by Mats Sundin.  We learned here that Mitch Marner is the current highest scoring active player on the list, and that his next hundred points will see him just outside the top 20, with his career only just beginning.

Finally we checking in on the all-time Leafs penalty minute list and learned that Zach Hyman, the Leafs current PIM champ, will have to more than double the all-time NHL games-played record just to have a hope of catching the PIM King, Tie Domi.

Today we will look into the games played list, stats courtesy of quanthockey.com.

Toronto Maple Leafs All-Time Games Played

The Leafs leader in games played is none other than George Armstrong.

Armstrong was born in 1930 and today is 90 years-old.  He played an incredible 20 seasons with the Leafs, starting in 1950 and finishing in 1970-71 when he was 40 years old. Armstrong played 1188 games in the blue and white, and holds the lead by four games over Tim Horton.

Borje Salming is third, Dave Keon fourth, and the top five is rounded out with Ron Ellis. Sundin comes sixth at 981, missing becoming the sixth Toronto Maple Leafs to play 1000 games by 19 games only.

The much maligned and unfairly unconsidered for Hall of Fame enshrinement Tomas Kaberle comes in at 8th, which I found interesting.  Domi 11th, Todd Gill 16th,  and Wendel Clark was 20th, playing just over 600 games.

Here is the stat that completely blew my mind: Tyler Bozak played only 14 games less than Clark as a Leaf, which doesn’t seem like it can be true, but must be.  Nazem Kadri was 26th and Jake Gardiner 28th.

Morgan Rielly with 517 career games with the Toronto Maple Leafs is the highest active player still on the team, and he ranks 37th all-time. Were he to play in all 56 rumored games this season, he would pass Kadri for 26th.