It’s often been said about the Toronto Maple Leafs that nothing will be proven until the postseason rolls around. The club, after all, has experienced no shortage of regular season success, but that certainly hasn’t carried over into the chase for the Stanley Cup. That said, we can’t simply jump ahead to April, so there is still the matter of 82 regular season games to be played. And while all eyes are surely on Toronto’s next foray into the first round, targeting an Atlantic Division title before that could be a major part of the puzzle.
This eight-year stretch of postseason appearances has also yielded impressive regular season performances, including the franchise’s two highest point totals (115 points in 2021-22 and 111 points in 2022-23). One thing the Maple Leafs haven’t achieved, however, is a division crown. Had they finished atop the Atlantic over the past three seasons, it would have meant that instead of two first-round encounters with the Tampa Bay Lightning and one with the Boston Bruins, they would have secured matchups with the aging Washington Capitals, the upstart Florida Panthers and the Lightning.
None of those playoff matchups would have guaranteed victory, but they would’ve at least represented a diversion from the status quo that hasn’t worked to date. This season, a division title looks like an achievable target, with a wide-open Atlantic and a tougher, deeper and more defensively sound Maple Leafs team (in spite of what the last two games have yielded). To better assess the club’s chances of reigning supreme atop the division, let’s take a closer look at some of their rivals thus far:
Tampa Bay Lightning
It feels like forever ago in light of Toronto’s recent slide, but it still had to feel good on Monday night to dominate the longtime-rival Lightning while chants of “Where is Stamkos?” rang out throughout Scotiabank Arena. In fairness, Tampa Bay came out of the gates hot amidst a hurricane-interrupted start to the season (before dropping their last two) and de facto Steven Stamkos replacement Jake Guentzel has been a point-per-game player thus far. Meanwhile, Nikita Kucherov has picked up right where he left off last season with an NHL-best eight goals.
But as losses in three of their past four games indicate, there are still questions that surround this Lightning team. The club has allowed 14 goals across those three losses, while star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy hasn’t quite looked like himself. This shouldn’t be a big concern five games into the season, but the 30-year-old Russian hasn’t really been at his best since undergoing back surgery last September. Couple that with questions regarding depth and things may not be so sunny as the 3-0 start would suggest.
While most teams (the Maple Leafs included) would kill for the Lightning’s recent track record of success, their postseason triumphs have come without much recent divisional dominance. They haven’t won the Atlantic since putting up a staggering 128 points in 2018-19 (before being upset by the Columbus Blue Jackets) and haven’t finished as high as second since the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season.
Boston Bruins
Toronto visits the Boston Bruins on Saturday, which will offer a chance for the Maple Leafs to get an early look at their playoff vanquishers, who have been somewhat uneven and inconsistent to start the 2024-25 season. On one hand, starting goaltender Jeremy Swayman seems to be coming into his own following a contract holdout that extended right up to Boston’s season opener. On the other hand, they hold a mediocre 3-4-1 record and have managed just three goals across their past three games.
Brad Marchand is off to a slow start, picking up four assists and zero goals over the first eight games. On the other end of the performance spectrum is Cole Koepke, a free agent signee on a two-way contract who survived a training camp battle for a depth role and suddenly shares the team lead in scoring with three goals and six points (while averaging just 11:03 of ice time per game).
Unless there’s more to the heated moment on the bench between Marchand and head coach Jim Montgomery on the weekend, there’s really not much to take out of the Bruins’ start. It isn’t the 9-0-1 start they enjoyed last season, but it’s safe to say that no one in Boston is raising any alarm bells.
Florida Panthers
The Florida Panther’s 5-3-1 record has been good enough to put them atop the Atlantic for the time being, largely on account of having played more games than anyone else in the division. Still, it’s a credit to the defending Stanley Cup champions that they have been able to hold steady in the absence of Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov, two of their top three scorers from a season ago.
Tkachuk returned in Tuesday night’s 5-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild after having what he termed a “little procedure” done, while Barkov is slated to be back soon after incurring a lower-body injury in an early season loss to the Ottawa Senators. In their stead, Sam Reinhart has been making good on his massive new contract, following up on last season’s 57-goal performance with five goals and 13 points through nine games.
Speaking of absence, the Panthers are still looking for answers on the blue line, where their top-four was impacted by the off-season departures of Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, not to mention losing Anthony Stolarz in net. While Nate Schmidt was brought in to add depth, the losses of Montour and Ekman-Larsson have largely been addressed through increased roles for incumbent defencemen. Aaron Ekblad, Gustav Forsling, Nikko Mikkola and, most significantly, Dmitry Kulikov have seen their roles expand. Whether all four men can sustain increased minutes over the long run remains to be seen.
Ottawa Senators
A lingering muscle strain to starting goaltender and major offseason addition Linus Ullmark has caused some consternation in Ottawa, but Anton Forsberg and the Senators seem to be doing just fine in the interim. Known in recent seasons for handcuffing themselves with slow starts, they are 4-2 through six games, with Forsberg fresh off a 4-0 blanking of the Utah Hockey Club.
Adding to the encouraging nature of their start is who they’ve started well against. Tuesday’s shutout marked Utah’s first home loss at the Delta Center. Prior to that, the Senators had already notched wins over the Cup-winning Panthers, the Lightning and the Los Angeles Kings, all playoff teams from a year ago.
Growth and development in Ottawa are already evident, and a playoff spot would be a major step forward for a franchise currently mired in a seven-year drought. When it comes to their level of threat to the Maple Leafs, however, let’s not get too carried away. The Senators finished 24 points behind Toronto in last season’s standings, so making up that kind of gap is likely unrealistic for this season.
Montreal Canadiens
Things were looking pretty promising for the Montreal Canadiens heading into the season, as their talented young core appeared ready to make their mark. That optimism was further emboldened by a season-opening 1-0 home win over the rival Maple Leafs in which Samuel Montembeault stole the show. Roughly two weeks later, things don’t seem quite so rosy anymore.
After winning two of their first three games, the Canadiens have dropped four straight, including an embarrassing 7-2 home loss to the New York Rangers. In that game, defenceman Justin Barron joined the likes of Patrik Laine, Juraj Slafkovsky and Kaiden Guhle on the sidelines thanks to a brutal check from Jacob Trouba. Among those who are healthy, Cole Caufield is scoring at an impressive rate, but hyped rookie blueliner Lane Hutson has looked lost defensively.
It isn’t uncommon for a young team to need time to gel before ultimately coming together. The 2016-17 Maple Leafs, led by a then-rookie Auston Matthews, stumbled out to a 1-2-3 start but finished with 95 points and a playoff spot. For now, though, getting things back on track will be a test for the maturity of Montreal’s young roster as well as their leadership, including captain Nick Suzuki.
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Buffalo Sabres
It’s been a rough start in Buffalo, but signs of life are suddenly being detected when it comes to the Sabres. A disappointing season-opening trip to Czechia to face the New Jersey Devils over a two-game Global Series yielded a pair of losses and just two goals scored to seven allowed. Things didn’t get much better upon their return to the United States, dropping three of their next four. And yet, identical 4-2 wins in Chicago and at home to Dallas over their last two games offer some cause for hope.
While star forwards Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch have gotten off to strong starts, the same cannot be said for Rasmus Dahlin and Dylan Cozens, who are still looking to find their game. New additions Ryan McLeod and Jason Zucker seem to be finding their place, but the Sabres’ playoff hopes are rooted more in the idea of internal improvement than any major addition they made this summer.
While it’s reasonable to expect such internal growth with a young core featuring the likes of Thompson (26), Dahlin (24), Cozens (23) and Owen Power (21), a postseason appearance may be a hill too high for Buffalo this season. The Sabres finished seven points shy of the second wild card spot last season and would have had to leapfrog four teams to get there. Thus far, they haven’t shown themselves to be appreciably better than the Washington Capitals, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers, all teams that stood between them and a playoff spot last season.
Detroit Red Wings
Speaking of the Red Wings and teams that might be coming on after slow starts, Detroit looks a lot better now that they’ve hit the road to knock off the Nashville Predators and New York Islanders after what was a 1-3 start.
While the offense still needs to get going (15 goals in six games), goal prevention has been a key area of early improvement thus far. In three starts, goaltender Alex Lyon (1.46 goals-against average, .955 save percentage) has stood out among a netminding triumvirate in Detroit that also includes Cam Talbot and Ville Husso. In front of him, Moritz Seider is growing in his No. 1 role and, as a result, the whole unit is looking more cohesive than they did to start the campaign.
Much like last season, when they missed the postseason simply by virtue of having five fewer regulation wins than the Capitals, the Red Wings look poised to compete for a wild card spot in the Eastern Conference come April. With Seider, Lucas Raymond and Dylan Larkin in tow, there is some talent here, but probably not enough to contend with the top teams of the Atlantic Division.
There is some degree of mystery over who may triumph in every NHL division, but perhaps none are more wide open than the Atlantic. The Metropolitan will probably come down to the Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes once again, while the Central and the Pacific have a small pool of candidates to reign supreme at season’s end, any of Toronto, Boston, Florida or Tampa could feasibly claim the Atlantic, with the possibility of a surprise team still looming. It’s going to be an exciting race all season, and the Maple Leafs should be right in the thick of it.
