The Toronto Maple Leafs made history on Saturday night in their 1-0 regulation loss to the Edmonton Oilers. Don't worry, it's the worst kind of history they can make.
In the 109 years that the Maple Leafs have existed -- even reaching far back before the days that they were called the Maple Leafs -- this team has never had a homestand as bad as the one that they just finished with that loss to Connor McDavid and his Oilers. This Leafs team was home and hosting a variety of teams over the last two weeks and went 0-6-0. That's right. No wins, no points earned, in six home games. Games where they should technically have the advantage by being able to return to their actual house instead of a hotel room or rushed to a plane to take a flight somewhere else.
There has never been a homestand as bad as the one the Leafs just suffered. Six straight losses.
It all started when they returned home from their Western Canada road trip, after earning a 4-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks (like they should) on Oct. 31.
They hosted the Utah Mammoth on Nov. 3 to a 3-2 loss. The Montreal Canadiens came to town four days later and beat them 4-2. The New Jersey Devils and Connor Hellebuyck rolled in the next day and handed them a 4-0 shutout loss. Then the Colorado Avalanche and Minnesota Wild showed why they're two of the best teams in the league and beat the brakes off them earlier this week by a combined scoer of 11-5. Then, even by keeping McDavid and his Oilers to just one single goal in 60 minutes, the offense dried up compeltely and they lost 1-0.
It was some abysmal hockey to watch and now the 2026-27 Toronto Maple Leafs are in the record books.
Did the Leafs deserve better during this historically awful homestand?
Leafs head coach Jim Hiller had his own thoughts on the terrible homestand. He believed that despite the 0-6-0 record, the team deserved so much better.
"It’s difficult, right? Because I can’t just go and tell you, 'Hey, all these good things,' and then we get on the wrong side of it again. That’s the hard part," Hiller said postgame. "The guys played their tail off. They did. I don’t think anybody’s going to question that. I’d like to see them get rewarded for that. I really would. It is what it is. You write your stories, but I’m here to tell you we deserved better than that over that six-game homestand, and we didn’t [get it]. We’ll move on to the next one."
The Leafs coach might be right.
Other than the obvious being that any team can win any night and the Leafs are certainly one of those teams, they haven't been playing awful hockey.
In this homestand, the Leafs have been outscored by their opponents 23-9 -- that's not great. But looking under the hood, they only slightly loss the shots on goal battle 158-170, had a 257-247 advantage in unblocked shot attempts, and won the shot attempt battle 355-341. All of that is in all situations -- they played basically even games in raw offensive numbers against these juggernaut teams.
Even at 5-on-5, they didn't look abysmal. It was a loss in the shots on goal, 129-140, but just like in all situations, the Leafs had the slight upper hand in other metrics. They had 216 unblocked shot attempts to the 195 their opponents put out, and had a 296-281 advantage in shot attempts. Even their expected goals weren't terrible at 5-on-5 during this homestand -- the opponents had a 12.1-10.66 advantage for a 46.85 xGF% for the Leafs.
All in all, those numbers could've easily translated to a team that went 3-3-0 in their six home games instead of dropping all six. But, that doesn't matter right now. They still lost. It might mean that they're playing decent enough hockey to easily win games over lesser opponents -- facing six playoff contenders back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back isn't great for the team's outlook. They'll get the chance to prove themselves in the near future and try to stop the bleeding and try to not break another Leafs record.
Leafs can break another franchise record
While they suffered their worst individual homestand, they can now really approach the worst losing streak at home in Leafs history.
Back in the 1984-85 season, considered by many the worst season in team history, under the control of the infamous Harold Ballard, the Leafs lost seven straight home games. Just a few weeks after setting that record, they would drop all five games in a homestand, which was the previous record before the Leafs lost to McDavid and his Oilers.
In that terrible season, the Leafs finished last in the NHL with a 20-52-8 record and won just 10 games at home.
The Leafs are heading to Chicago to face the Blackhawks, but after that game on Tuesday, they come home to host the Los Angeles Kings and Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday and Saturday. With a loss to the Kings, they will tie the record set by the 1984-85 Leafs, and of course, with a loss to the Blue Jackets, they will set a new record.
Those are two fairly winnable games against some of the worst teams in the NHL this season, but these are the Leafs. Maybe we'll have to write another article next week about how they set another terrible franchise record.
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