The Toronto Maple Leafs are poised to make a major shakeup in the coming weeks after a disastrous start to their 2025-26 NHL season. After all, it certainly has been a while since the Maple Leafs have found themselves in the basement of the Eastern Conference like where they currently stand. One would have to go all the way back to their rebuilding years back in 2015-16 to be exact when they finished with a 29-42-11 record to finish not only dead last in the conference, but in the entire league as well.
The Maple Leafs can’t let that happen again, especially for a team that has been so used to being a perennial contender since the Auston Matthews era started. As a result, Toronto need to make some changes in the near future to help the team get better before it’s too late. Here, we will take a look at 3 Maple Leafs that could be gone by the end of next month as a result.
Dakota Joshua
One of the Leafs key offseason trades from this past summer sure hasn’t been panning out so far this year. Toronto had acquired forward Dakota Joshua from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a 2028 fourth-round pick to bring home their former 2014 fifth-round pick. Joshua was expected to add some grit along with some much-needed secondary scoring to the Leafs bottom six, as he had previously posted back-to-back double-digit goal-scoring seasons with the Canucks in 2022-23 and 2023-24.
However, the 29-year-old forward has managed only two goals and three assists for five points in 22 games played with Toronto, making him on pace for less than 10 goals and 20 points over the entire season. More significantly, Joshua hasn’t been tilting the ice in the Leafs favour whenever he has taken the ice, registering a disappointing CF of 45% and scoring chances rate of 48% in 5-on-5 situations. With a massive cap hit of $3.25 million per season playing bottom-six minutes, Toronto needs to use that cap space for more reliable scoring upfront to help make a difference for the team.
Brandon Carlo
The big trade from last season’s trade deadline move also hasn’t been paying huge dividends for the Leafs so far in 2025-26. When Toronto acquired Brandon Carlo from the Boston Bruins in exchange for promising prospect Fraser Minten at the time, many expected Carlo to raise his game and become the trusted defensive partner for Morgan Rielly in their top pairing. However, that hasn’t materialized as the 29-year-old defenseman has struggled with his new team.
Carlo wasn’t really expected to be an offensive juggernaut to provide some massive production from the back end. But he has also disappointed in his other aspects of the game so far this season. Not only is Carlo no longer a hitting machine like he was during his earlier years with the Bruins, with only 12 hits all year in 18 games played, he is also sporting a horrendous 20-to-1 giveaway/takeaway ratio in the process. Moreover, his 44% CF%, 45% expected goals rate and 47% scoring chances rate in 5-on-5 situations are among the worst of his NHL career.
Nevertheless, Carlo’s size and ability to log big minutes could still be appealing to prospective teams. With the Leafs in dire need of help for their roster both offensively and defensively going forward, along with Carlo carrying a whopping $4.1 million cap hit per season, unloading his contract could help Toronto net a key piece to get themselves back into contention.
Craig Berube
Finally, we have the Leafs head coach Craig Berube in the hot seat as of this moment. After implementing the perfect system to lead Toronto to the Atlantic Division title last season and nearly to the third round in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, that same system appears to be no longer working this time around in 2025-26.
The Maple Leafs currently rank in the bottom five in the league in goals against with 82. In terms of special teams, Toronto also find themselves towards the bottom third of the NHL with just a 15.5% power play success rate to rank 26th and a penalty kill success rate of 80% to rank 19th. More importantly though has been the team’s lack of focus and will to win night in and night out. No longer do we get to witness high-end, determined, exciting hockey from the Leafs. Instead, they look disinterested at times and seem to even have trouble just getting the puck up the ice.
As a result, if Berube doesn’t end up acting fast enough to get things turned around soon, it might not be just the select players mentioned above that will be moved to get the Leafs that much-needed spark to reignite the team.