The Toronto Maple Leafs have not had the best start to their season. Sure, their record of 8-5-1 to start the 2025-26 campaign isn't that far off from just last year, in a season where they ended up at the top of the Atlantic Division, but there are little nuances that aren't clicking well enough.
It's almost like you can sense some pieces needing fixing or replacing, or just playing better hockey. Three players specifically come to mind who have been disappointing through the first 14 games of the Leafs season.
Max Domi
Max Domi should be the posterchild when it comes to underperforming areas of this Leafs team. He got the first crack at replacing Mitch Marner on the top line next to Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies but played so poorly through the first weeks that he has quickly fallen out of grace and tumbled down to the fourth line.
With just one goal and four points in 14 games, Domi has been below replacement level offensively and doing what he normally does on the defensive side of the puck: Absolutely nothing. Rookie Easton Cowan has as many points as Domi this season but in four fewer games, that's basically all you need to know. A 20-year-old who was just playing his first ever professional hockey games is doing more with his opportunities than Domi is.
Domi's start to his season just leaves you wondering where you go from here.
Anthony Stolarz
Stolarz just led the NHL in save percentage for the past two seasons but under fairly beneficial workload. He played a career-high 34 games last season and looked unstoppable during the regular season, but has followed that up with a below-average .895 save percentage through the first 11 games of his season.
Maybe it's in Joseph Woll's absence and him being officially the Leafs' starter that gave him more pressure to perform than he's ever had in his career -- or it's just the Leafs being a much slower defensive team this time around. Either way, with a system that is so relient on the goaltending stealing some games under head coach Craig Berube, to put up those numbers is a disappointment and not something that will lead to many wins.
Nicolas Roy
It's hard to have high expectations for a player that was labeled as a very solid bottom-six center from the Vegas Golden Knights, but we thought there would be something more. As the return in the Mitch Marner sign-and-trade, Roy has come in and provided some solid defending but given how much he's been out there, he should score more than three points this entire season.
Roy is a defense-first player and that is completely fine, but without a new addition for the time being, he's the Leafs' third-line center and considering that Scott Laughton also doesn't give you a whole lot of offense, it doesn't make sense to have half your centers unable to make plays in the other team's zone.
It is great to have a player like Roy, but with him and Laughton averaging around 20-25 minutes a night together, should the Leafs really be comfortable with almost half the game not being able to have someone able to create some scoring chances down the middle? I guess we just expected a little bit more juice from the newcomer.