Maple Leafs Need to Reverse Trends By Getting Off to a Fast Start This Season

A new season is just around the corner for the Toronto Maple Leafs and new general manager John Chayka and while the offseason has been a pretty major overhaul for the team, there are still questions around whether or not this roster can make a push to the playoffs and beyond the first round.

The bottom-six has seen big changes with guys like Brandon Duhaime, Colton Sissons and Jack Roslovic coming into the orgnization, while Sergei Bobrovsky joined the club in net. Adding a star up front like Gavin McKenna was another big move for the team through the draft, but it’s still not an automatic when it comes to making the playoffs.

While the critics remain prevalent, there’s one way the Maple Leafs could silence them early in the season – and that’s with a strong opening month. Now an 84-game regular season, every game is going to count for the team and historically they haven’t started off incredibly hot.

Maple Leafs Historically Bad in Opening Month

Heading into the 2026-27 season, the Maple Leafs have played 753 games all-time during the month of October – normally their opening month of the NHL season. Their all-time record over that span isn’t awful, however, with ties included, the team is below .500 with a point percentage slightly higher.

Their record over that span is 334-304-81-34, kicking off from the NHL’s inaugural season in 1917-18. It’s safe to say the Maple Leafs have historically started off poorly. That said, recent numbers aren’t as bad. Still, they don’t come close to what you’d want to see from a contending team.

Over the last five seasons, the Maple Leafs have had a record of 24-20-5 in the month of October. Once, again, a sub-.500 record with a point percentage slightly higher. At the NHL level that simply won’t cut it.

Their best season over that span came in 2024-25. The team kicked off the season with a 6-4-1 record, finishing the season 52-26-4 with 108 points and first in the Atlantic Division. However, as we saw last season, they took a step back in 2025-26 – starting 5-5-1 and finishing the season in the bottom-five of the NHL.

Simply put, the first month of the season hasn’t been good for the Maple Leafs, historically speaking.

Maple Leafs Need Hot Start in 2026-27

With the 84-game regular season kicking off in 2026-27 under the NHL’s new CBA, the Maple Leafs regular season actually starts at the end of September with the team playing back-to-back games on September 29 and 30.

Along with those two games, the team has 14 more through October with half of their first 16 games coming at home – including two back-to-backs. Overall, it’ll be the most games the team has played in its first month of the season – counting the September matchups – making up for nearly 20 percent of the team’s regular season schedule.

Given the significant portion of the season played out between the two months, it’s imperative that Jim Hiller’s team gets out to a strong start. A point percentage of over .600 is something the Maple Leafs should be striving for to kick off their 2026-27 campaign – a number still much lower than the NHL’s 2025-26 Presidents’ Trophy winning Colorado Avalanche who started last season 7-1-4 with a .750 point percentage.

As for how that will happen, it’s going to take a full buy-in to Hiller’s system from the core of the Maple Leafs – including a healthy bounce back from captain Auston Matthews, a strong start from the star rookie McKenna and contributions from up and down the lineup.

Maple Leafs’ Message Needs to Be Clear

After a season without playoffs, the message from the team needs to be clear and it needs to be set early in the season. If they want to make their return to the postseason, the Maple Leafs will need a strong effort early as the Atlantic Division continues to be a tough place to play in.

On paper, they should be playoff bound. However, if the Maple Leafs start slow again or run into any sort of injury trouble to start the year like they did early last season, it could spell disaster once again for a team that needs a postseason berth in 2026-27.