Without question the Toronto Maple Leafs have endured many struggles during the first half of their 2025-26 NHL season. Whether it be their offense, their defense, their goaltending, or even their abysmal power play, each of those important aspects of the game just wasn’t clicking at some point in time over the course of the season.
However, there has been one aspect of their game that had been relatively consistent, reliable enough such that it has been the Maple Leafs saviour so far in keeping the team in the playoff hunt through all the adversity. That saviour happens to be their elite penalty killing.
The Leafs' penalty kill has given them some wins
During the previous couple of seasons, the Leafs penalty kill had actually been one of their Achilles heel. In 2023-24, Toronto ranked 23rd in the league with just a 76.9% success rate. While in 2024-25, they were just slightly better in 17th with a 77.9% success rate. Considering that the Maple Leafs were led by the electric Mitch Marner in the department, one would have expected numbers to be above 80% on a regular basis.
However, for this current season, their strong special teams play with a man short has been at another level. Halfway through the 2025-26 NHL campaign, the Maple Leafs sit comfortably in third place in the entire league with an 84.1% success rate. That is their best mark in over a decade since posting an unbelievable 87.9% rate back during the 2012-13 season. The Leafs power play may have practically been non-existent during the first half, but their penalty kill sure made up for it to help keep their special teams respectable overall.
Led by the great work done of Nicolas Roy, Steven Lorentz, Scott Laughton, Calle Jarnkrok, Matthew Knies, Jake McCabe, Simon Benoit, Troy Stecher, Brandon Carlo and even Auston Matthews, and of course the stingy play of Joseph Woll and Dennis Hildeby, they have helped smother the opposition from getting quality chances on net while clearing away the puck effectively to minimize the damage. The Leafs may only have two shorthanded goals to date, but the main purpose of the penalty kill is to effectively prevent goals from being scored from the opposition, which they have done a masterful job of.
In doing so, it has kept the Maple Leafs in many games and has enabled them to play more aggressively without worrying that a penalty could come back to bite them. Now that their power play, offense and defense has woken up in recent weeks, equipped with an already-strong penalty kill, the Leafs could be in for a dominant second half of the season to help push the team back into the playoff picture.