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.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson cashed in last summer. After winning the Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers and rejuvenating his career from the depths of being a Vancouver Canuck for a couple seasons, he signed a handsome four-year contract through his mid-30s with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Now he enters his second year in Toronto with some questions that need to be answered and expectations that might need to be clarified. Let's dive in.
What did we see from Ekman-Larsson last season?
Ekman-Larsson was honestly better than expected, even after coming off of what was a prominent role while winning the whole dang Stanley Cup. Some were suspect that he was just a product of the Panthers' system and, as we just saw with Nate Schmidt for example, just a player who had some tools and was perfectly molded to make it work in Sunrise.
But, that luckily wasn't the case. Ekman-Larsson started the year on fire with a scoring tear that took us back to his Arizona Coyote days, earning six points in his first 10 games as a Leafs defenseman. Even as the team faltered off to a 5-4-1 start during that stretch, it was the newcomer that kept a fairly steady rate of offensive contribution.
While that rate didn't extend through all 77 games that the 34-year-old Swede appeared in, Ekman-Larsson did finish the season with the most points scored by a Leafs blueliner at 5-on-5. A total of two gaols and 24 total points scored while the teams were at full strength -- three more than Jake McCabe and five more than Morgan Rielly. He even led the Toronto blue line in individual expected goals, with 4.22 from the point, which places him just outside the top-50 among all NHL defensemen in that metric.
While Ekman-Larsson's offense was solid, it was his general on-ice effects that were not really championship calibre. He was below the 50 percent mark in all on-ice percentages except actual goals -- 49.49 percent of shots, 48.46 percent of shot attempts, 49.72 of expected goals. They weren't abysmal numbers but they weren't dominant.
Overall, it felt like we saw more offense than expected out of Ekman-Larsson, but he eventually settled into this bottom-pairing role to just keep everything even in the game. Just someone that isn't banging down the door bringing an immense amount of value, but he won't hurt your team.
What should we expect from Ekman-Larsson this season?
Now as we move into Ekman-Larsson's second year as a Leaf, the shine of a new signing has grown dull and the expectation to bring the same level of play as last year, remains strong.
It's difficult to expect so much from someone who has given a whole lot to the team last year and is heading into the twilight years of his career. Is he suddenly going to have another renaissance season where he turns back the clock, scores more points than he has since he was in his mid-20s, and play over 22 minutes a night? Probably not.
But what we could easily expect is just for Ekman-Larsson to continue to do exactly what he did. It would be perfectly reasonable to just want him as a hockey player and everything that he did last season -- going on a slight scoring tear, relied upon to play big minutes for some injury-riddled games, be just generally solid -- trapped in amber and just do it all again for the 2025-26 season. We want this year to be the 34-year-old's Groundhog's Day, basically.
What we should also expect (or brace ourselves for) is that eventual decline. Especially when it comes to defensemen who are known for their mobility and slight offensive game, the aging curve hits hard like a bag full of bricks. One day he will be able to do everything he has always done, and then just a week or so later we'll be calling for him to be sent on waivers or bought out as soon as possible.
It might not happen this season but we should at least expect to see some wear and tear get to Ekman-Larsson and have that effect his game.
So, generally, we can say that we are hopeful that the veteran blueliner plays the exact same way as he did last season, but slightly expect and almost predict that there will be signs of aging and maybe a slight decline in the areas that makes him useful.