Can the Maple Leafs Win the Race to the NHL’s Basement?

The news that came out yesterday about Auston Matthews wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear. The Toronto Maple Leafs captain will miss the rest of the season after suffering a Grade 3 MCL tear and a quadriceps contusion following a knee-on-knee hit from Radko Gudas in Thursday’s game against the Anaheim Ducks.

Technically, the Maple Leafs haven’t been mathematically eliminated from the playoff race yet. But losing Matthews at this stage makes the road forward awfully difficult to imagine. He finishes the season with 27 goals and 53 points in 60 games, which are modest numbers by his own standards but still a massive piece of Toronto’s offence.

Without him, the rest of the season suddenly looks very different for the Maple Leafs. Now, with Matthews’ injury as the exclamation point, the season’s goals change.

The Maple Leafs’ Unofficial Race for a First-Round Draft Pick

If you want to understand one of the stranger storylines in the NHL right now, just take a look at the chart below. That’s the league’s unofficial “race to the bottom.” Not something teams advertise, of course, but every season a handful of clubs end up staring at the standings and realizing the playoffs aren’t happening. The Maple Leafs are one of them.

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When that point hits, the focus quietly shifts. Development matters. Young players get ice time. Somewhere in the background sits the draft lottery. Because finishing near the bottom gives a team the best shot at landing that coveted first-overall pick.

Where the Bottom NHL Teams Stand Right Now

The Canucks Have the Lead to the First-Overall Draft Pick

Right now, the Vancouver Canucks sit squarely in the driver’s seat. With only 20 wins in 65 games and a goal differential sitting at a rough minus-72, the Canucks have had a long season. Their recent run (2-6-2 over the last ten) hasn’t exactly helped matters either. They’ve been competitive some nights, but the results keep sliding in the same direction.

Right behind them are the Calgary Flames. Their season has been frustrating, too, although the organization seems to understand it’s part of a longer rebuilding process. The Flames have managed 26 wins and a slightly better goal differential at minus-41, but they’ve still spent most of the season chasing games instead of controlling them. Even when they show a little life, they’re still hovering in the lottery neighbourhood.

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The Chicago Blackhawks aren’t far away either. The Blackhawks have been scrappy lately and even strung together a couple of wins, but their record still keeps them firmly in the bottom tier of the league. The difference between these teams right now isn’t huge. A few wins here or there could shuffle the order pretty quickly.

Things Are More Interesting with This Second Group of NHL Teams

Then things get interesting. The Winnipeg Jets, for example, are technically still in the mix but sit a little higher up the ladder. Their goal differential isn’t nearly as brutal as some of the teams below them, and they’ve shown flashes of being a tougher out. They play like they actually believe they can sneak into the postseason and do some serious damage. Because of that, their chances of doing well in the lottery start to drop.

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The same idea applies to teams like the St. Louis Blues, the New York Rangers, the New Jersey Devils, and finally, Toronto in this chart. They’ve all had rough stretches this season, but they’ve still piled up just enough points to drift slightly away from the league’s true basement. The Blues, for example, just came back to beat the Edmonton Oilers last night, which suggests they’re still playing to win rather than slipping toward the bottom.

Here’s Where the Finish Gets Complicated for the Maple Leafs

One reason falling into the bottom five might actually help the Maple Leafs is tied to their draft-pick situation. If Toronto’s first-round pick lands in the top five, the pick owed to the Boston Bruins is pushed back to either 2027 or 2028. That means a deep slide in the standings could end up working in the Maple Leafs’ favour. The 2026 Draft is expected to feature strong talent at the top, exactly the kind of high-end prospect Toronto could use to help its long-term future.

That’s where the strange math of the NHL draft lottery comes in. The worst teams don’t automatically get the first overall pick anymore — they just get the best odds. The lower a team finishes, the better its chances when the lottery balls start bouncing.

For the Maple Leafs, that’s where things could quietly become interesting. Slide far enough down the standings, and Toronto would move into that group of teams with a legitimate shot at a top-five pick. That’s exactly the scenario that would improve their lottery odds while also pushing that owed pick to Boston further down the road.