For nine years, the postseason felt less like a goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs and more like a birthright. It is, of course, this incredibly consistent recent track record of (regular season) greatness that makes the current iteration of the last-place club so maddening.
But while there’s no shortage of content out there about what’s wrong with the 2025-26 Maple Leafs, this also marks an opportunity to celebrate what was (and hopefully continues to be) a remarkable sustained stretch of success for the franchise.
A Near-Decade of Dominance, By the Numbers
From the 2016-17 campaign – also known as Auston Matthews’ rookie season – through to the end of last season, Toronto took part in exactly 700 regular season games (including pandemic-influenced 56- and 70-game seasons). All told, they owned a 408-214-78 record, good for 894 total points and a points percentage of .639.
To be clear, those numbers are elite. Toronto ranks third league-wide in wins and points over that time period, trailing only a pair of Atlantic Division rivals in the Boston Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning. Their 3.41 goals per game in that nine-year stretch ranks second to the Lightning (3.44) and they scored nearly half a goal more per game than what they allowed.
As any Maple Leafs fan knows, the ‘Core Four’ have been at the forefront of that success. Matthews has led the league in goals (401) across that time period, while all of Matthews (ninth), Mitch Marner (eighth), John Tavares (16th) and William Nylander (25th) ranked among the league’s top-25 scorers over those nine seasons.
Comparison to Other Eras of Maple Leafs Hockey
To find another stretch of nine postseason appearances in a row for the franchise, you have to go all the way back to the ‘Original Six’ era. While Toronto reeled off an eight-season playoff streak in the 1970s and into the early-80s, it hasn’t been since the period between the 1958-59 and 1966-67 seasons that the club made it nine straight.
Of course, it’s difficult to compare teams across various eras of NHL hockey given differences in the number of teams and postseason format. However, points percentage, which measures points accumulation relative to games played, serves as something of an equalizer. Sure enough, three of the top four and five of the top 10 points percentage seasons in franchise history have come during this era (the 2021-22 Maple Leafs own the franchise-best mark with a .701 points percentage).
If you put this Maple Leafs era in a post-expansion context, it looms even larger as a high point in the history of the franchise. Only the 2003-04 (103 points, .628 points percentage), 2001-02 (100 points, .610 points percentage) and 1999-00 (100 points, .610 points percentage) teams can come close to matching what we’ve seen during the past decade. That means that while the beloved Mats Sundin-led, turn-of-the-century teams managed to reach a conference final or two, they couldn’t hold a candle to the Matthews era in the regular season.
Iconic Moments
While numbers go a long way towards telling the story of Toronto’s stellar regular season play since 2016, legacies are built on moments and memories. And although the image of, say, Matthews hoisting the Stanley Cup remains elusive, these Maple Leafs have still created their share of moments.
Once all is said and done, the lasting triumphant image of this group may well be Tavares’ Game 6 series-clinching overtime winner against the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2023 to carry the club out of the first round for the first time in nearly 20 years. Even without broader playoff success, overtime winners have also been authored by Simon Benoit, Max Domi, Matthew Knies, Alex Kerfoot, Morgan Rielly, Tyler Bozak, Kasperi Kapanen and Matthews over the stretch.
The regular season, where the organization has thrived, isn’t devoid of memorable high points, either. Matthews hit the 60-goal mark for the first time in front of a raucous home crowd at Scotiabank Arena in 2022. His four-goal NHL debut was not on home ice, but was nevertheless memorable. From an awards standpoint, he became the Maple Leafs’ first Calder Trophy winner since 1966 and first Hart Trophy winner since 1955.
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Apart from Matthews, Marner enjoyed a franchise-record 23-game points streak in 2022 and became the fourth Maple Leaf (behind Darryl Sittler, Doug Gilmour and Matthews) to hit the 100-point plateau last season. Tavares, whose decision to sign with the franchise represented a moment in and of itself, reached 1,000 career points and 500 career goals with Toronto.
If the struggles of the 2025-26 Maple Leafs continue and signal the end of an era, then this iteration of the club will probably be best remembered for having all the talent but coming up short in the playoffs. When that’s the end goal of every hockey season, then it’s hard to look at things any other way. And yet, this group offered several landmark seasons for the storied franchise, nine straight postseason appearances and plenty of excitement and explosive hockey along the way.
