This season was always going to be a weird one for the Toronto Maple Leafs but we never thought it could be starting out this bad. And now, the new front office is starting to feel the heat.
Coming into this season, by installing an entirely new front office and coaching staff, the Leafs were given a little bit of some wiggle room to make their first impression. General manager John Chayka flipped over half of the roster, added a whole lot of talent (or at least, changed what players were on the roster), and then hired Jim Hiller to be the new head coach.
Unfortunately, even though expectations were that they would just battle for the playoffs, after losing 6-3 to the Colorado Avalanche, the Leafs' 8-10-2 record is not really sending out the message that that is possible. While we are loving what we're seeing from a whole lot of players, like the rejuvenation of Auston Matthews and (before he was injured) the injection of Kirill Marchenko into this team, and rookie Gavin McKenna is showing signs of promise; the team overall just keeps on losing.
Now, according to multiple reports, the Leafs are starting to feel some pressure around the front office.
Maple Leafs front office getting pressured into doing something?
On Monday's episode of The Leaf Report, James Mirtle was talking about how the organization overall is experiencing some tense emotions with how the Leafs have looked out on the ice.
James Mirtle on The Leaf Report says his read on it is that things are already getting intense around the organization.
— Willyston Riellander (@nylanderthews) November 9, 2026
And then the following day, NHL insider Chris Johnston appeared on TSN's First Up and echoed Mirtle's sentiments. Everyone in the Leafs organization is starting to feel some pressure to do something that can lead to a higher number in the win column.
CJ on First Up says it's very tense, everyone's feeling it around the organization. His sense of the front office is there's a pretty big weight on their shoulders.
— Willyston Riellander (@nylanderthews) November 10, 2026
It's no secret that the Leafs have a big elephant in the room.
While this season would be nice with playoffs, it's less about the actual wins and more about what they mean when it comes to keeping their star captain around.
Auston Matthews said that he needed to see some action in the summer and a specific direction with this team after Brad Treliving and Craig Berube drove it into the ground. Everything seems peachy over there, but considering he's a free agent after next season and it's really right now that he needs to see that direction actually happen on the ice, things could certainly get tense.
If the Leafs lose Matthews and he would rather jump off the sinking ship, then they would need to essentially start over.
The only thing is that currently, the Leafs are so injured that it would affect just about any team. Colton Sissons, Morgan Rielly, Kirill Marchenko, Nick Blankenburg, and Marshall Rifai are all out with injuries. John Tavares also just returned from injury and defenseman Chris Tanev is having his load managed. We can be as nice as possible to the Leafs and understand that they are just currently so banged up that it's hard to determine how good this team actually is.
Maybe that can be understood by some players and therefore by the front office, but wins are wins and teams should prepare for any outcome.
No matter what, we might just see some early-season action from this Toronto front office.
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