The 2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs season is coming fast but before the games truly matter, we at Editor In Leaf are taking a look at one player everyday until the puck is dropped, and what we could expect from them this time around.
Bobby McMann is in a tough spot. One of the shining examples of the Maple Leafs' development system, the undrafted college free agent suddenly turned into someone who actually scored some goals. While coming up with the Toronto Marlies, he scored more goals than he ever did for Colgate University and that streak translated to his time on the Maple Leafs.
But now, where do we go from here? McMann will need to fight more than ever for his spot in the lineup.
What did we see from McMann last season?
In his first full season as a regular, everyday NHL hockey player, McMann was able to continue some of the success that found him in the previous year. Scoring 20 goals and earning a total of 34 points in 74 games – his goal-to-assist ratio is something that you don’t really want to fall in love with or expect to happen once again, but to say that an undrafted player is a 20-goal scorer is pretty neat.
McMann was able to balance all of that out with a middling on-ice shot attempt share of 48.59 at 5-on-5, but he was still one of the better forwards, as he ranked seventh in that category and the only forwards who were above the 50 percent threshold were the first line of Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies, and Mitch Marner. The Leafs didn’t focus a whole lot on controlling the shot attempt game.
What was impressive is that when McMann was on the ice, the Leafs were scoring 3.01 goals per 60 minutes, according to. Which is a better rate than every single forward on the team except Matthews, Marner, and John Tavares. Even looking at the on-ice goals share at 5-on-5 compared to the entire league, McMann’s 60.25 goals for percentage ranked 24th among all NHL forwards to play at least 900 minutes.
As simple as possible: The Leafs were a very good hockey team when McMann was on the ice during the regular season. But, is that sustainable?
What should we expect from McMann this season?
It’s difficult to predict what kind of role McMann will have on this team. Compared to last season, the Maple Leafs heavily invested this offseason to address their scoring depth. Adding forwards like Nicolas Roy, Dakota Joshua, and Mattias Macelli, Toronto is suddenly a much deeper team up front.
We think that there is obviously a roster spot for McMann but it might be nothing more than a winger who is permanently in the bottom six and could even be at-risk of being a healthy scratch if he suffers a couple suboptimal performances in a row. And, his spot on the second power-play unit could even be taken away from him for one of the newcomers.
But, we still generally expect the same level of play from McMann. He may not score 20 goals with fewer opportunities, but he should still be causing some chaos and just be in a solid support role. He could form a tenacious third line with Joshua and Roy, or could be the scoring threat on a fourth line with Steven Lorentz and Scott Laughton. No matter what, there is a spot for him but McMann might just have some of his counting stats taken away from him.