After hitting their lowest point of the season, a deflating 5-2 road loss to the arch-rival Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs have engineered an improbable turnaround.
What looked like a team on the brink of disaster has instead been revived by a series of unexpected factors: a savvy waiver-wire pickup no one saw coming, depth players stepping into meaningful roles, and a stretch of spectacular goaltending, most recently from an unexpected source.
Suddenly, a season that felt like it was slipping away has been jolted back to life in ways few could have predicted.
The Leafs have regrouped from the basement to the middle of a jam-packed Eastern Conference standings. It's how they did it and who is responsible that is hard to believe.
Leafs' Depth Players Have Provided a Spark
Since that drubbing in Montreal, the Maple Leafs have gone 5-1-1, outscoring the opposition 23-11. In their lone regulation loss, they blew a 2-0 lead in Washington against the Capitals, another low point as they were dominated during the second half of that game. Their other loss over the past seven games was a home-ice shootout loss to the Canadiens.
Credit the Leafs for rebounding after the demoralizing loss to the Capitals. It came during the first game of a back-to-back. The next night, against Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins, it was a newly formed dominant third line that keyed Toronto's best game of the season, a 7-2 thrashing.
Nicolas Roy, Dakota Joshua, and Bobby McMann have given the Maple Leafs the strong third line they have been searching for. It started in Pittsburgh when they scored all three goals in the second period (a season-long team weakness) to turn a tight 2-1 game into cruise mode.
The Maple Leafs' new third line continued their dominance in the team's next game against the Florida Panthers. They scored two first-period goals to jump-start the Leafs' victory. It was an unexpected third-period goal from snake-bitten fourth-line center Scott Laughton, who gave Toronto a two-goal lead and some breathing room. They went on to post a 4-1 win and leap over Florida in the standings.
Laughton's renewed confidence, after a tough finish to 2024-25 and beginning to this season, spurred him to score again in the team's next two games, a clinical 5-1 road decision over the Carolina Hurricanes, and a short-handed third-period marker that salvaged a point against the Canadiens.
Drastic Improvement from Leafs' Defense and Goaltending
Tightening the defense has also been a big key to the Maple Leafs' recent resurgence. During the first quarter of the season, the Leafs committed glaring defensive errors and didn't have the goaltending to bail them out. That resulted in giving up the most goals against league-wide, almost four per game.
After giving up only eleven goals over their last seven games, Toronto is now 20th, cutting the number to 3.17 per game. This comes after injuries to top-four defensemen, Chris Tanev and Brandon Carlo.
An unexpected source has aided the defensive turnaround: waiver-wire pickup Troy Stecher. After being claimed from the Edmonton Oilers, Stecher has appeared in 10 games for the Maple Leafs, scoring a goal, adding 3 assists, and is a plus-nine.
Stecher has averaged twenty minutes a game and provides a puck-moving element that has improved the Leafs' transition game. Recently, he has formed a solid pairing with Jake McCabe.
The final unanticipated contributor to the Maple Leafs' rise in the standings has come from goaltender Dennis Hildeby. Joseph Woll excelled in his return from his personal leave and gave the Leafs a boost of confidence, but was then sidelined with a lower-body injury.
The presumption was that the Maple Leafs were in dire straits. Instead, Hildeby has been terrific. He registered his first NHL shutout against the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 2-0 victory after stealing a point for the Leafs in their shootout loss to Montreal.
The Maple Leafs' plan was for Hildeby to spend another year developing with the Toronto Marlies. Toronto tried, unsuccessfully, to use veteran options James Reimer (not signed after a PTO) and Cayden Primeau (reclaimed by the Carolina Hurricanes) as a third goalie.
Hildeby's rise and outstanding play (2.15 goals-against average, .936 save percentage) has bought the Leafs time while they wait on Anthony Stolarz to work through his injury issues. With Woll expected back soon, Toronto can comfortably move forward with a 50-50 split in goaltending duties.
In the end, no one could have predicted that a reinvented third line, a defenseman plucked off the waiver wire, and a third-string goalie would be the pillars holding the Toronto Maple Leafs' season together.
The unlikely contributors have transformed the team and steadied the ship when it seemed ready to sink. In a year already defined by twists, setbacks, and an improbable resurgence, the Leafs' revival stands as a reminder that unimaginable reasons can sometimes save a season.