The social media chatter among Toronto Maple Leafs fans went viral today when The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn’s latest speed chart made it official: the Toronto Maple Leafs are slow. Really slow. What’s striking is that this isn’t about one game or a few off nights. This feels systemic, a roster-wide problem creeping (pun intended) into every shift.
Much was made this past offseason about revamping the team’s DNA. It was too skilled and fancy before. The play needed to go north-south, rather than scramble east and west (or wherever). The perfect example of how to solve that problem was when the team traded away Fraser Minten for Brandon Carlo.
Related: 3 Takeaways From the Maple Leafs’ 5-2 Loss to the Canadiens
Minten was something the team thought it had too much of: speed and skill. Carlo was something the team had too little of: size and bite. The pattern took further hold during the offseason, when the team traded for more size and physicality, hoping to shape a new identity on ice.
But the trade-off isn’t working. Agility has vanished, speed has dwindled, and the physicality you might expect from big bodies… well, it’s not showing up either. One fan put it perfectly in my hearing by noting that, if you’re big, slow, and out of position, it’s hard to really impose your physicality.
Maple Leafs Auston Matthews and the Speed Question
Even Auston Matthews, the cornerstone of this team, shows signs of decline. His top speed numbers that once hovered around 22.5 mph are down to 21.5 mph this season. Burst speed—a metric that measures those sudden accelerations that turn a forecheck into a breakaway—has also dipped sharply.
Related: Maple Leafs Miss Mitch Marner & Haven’t Done Enough to Replace Him
Comparisons with other high-speed forwards make the drop obvious: Matthews isn’t producing the explosive surges that used to define his game. Some might chalk this up to a more defensive approach or missing Mitch Marner, but neither makes logical sense to me. Instead, it fits a broader pattern: the Maple Leafs’ top-end pace is lagging across the board. When your best players are slower in transition, it affects the flow of the entire lineup.
The NHL Is Getting Faster, But Toronto Is Falling Behind
A slower Toronto team is trying to win in a faster NHL. The NHL has been speeding up for years. Over the past four seasons, the league’s average number of bursts above 18 mph per game has steadily climbed. Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs’ numbers this season have fallen in the opposite direction.
This isn’t subtle. Opponents are skating faster, cycling harder, pressing with intensity, and generating scoring chances in a blink. The Maple Leafs, by contrast, are losing ground. In a league where split-second bursts (like Lane Hutson’s goal against the team last night) can mean the difference between a goal and a turnover, the gap is glaring.
Related: 7 Cool Things About Jumbo Joe Thornton
One of the most glaring examples was the Maple Leafs being spun into the ground by their old head coach, Sheldon Keefe, when the New Jersey Devils outskated them 5-2 on Oct. 21. The Maple Leafs couldn’t keep up, and Keefe’s team just kept pouring it on.
Rebuilding and Retooling Might Succeed, Where Are the Wins?
What’s so interesting about this discussion is that the Maple Leafs seem to have succeeded in building the kind of team (with the right DNA) they wanted. Is it time for fans and analysts to start asking the more difficult questions: if a bigger, more physical team can’t keep up to the play to utilize its speed and physicality, can this roster realistically compete?
(David Kirouac-Imagn Images)
The hope that usually stays with the Maple Leafs throughout the regular season, until the playoffs come, seems to have dissipated. Some hockey writers have floated the idea of bottoming out this season to chase a top-five pick and a full retool. Others note that trades alone can’t fix fundamental flaws.
Related: Maple Leafs May Have Been Playing Hurt Before Anyone Knew It
At some point, the conversation has to acknowledge that you can’t fix a slow team with a few minor tweaks. If you’ve built the thing the wrong way, tightening a few bolts won’t change the ride. It’s like showing up to the Indy 500 in a camper van and hoping for the best. Getting back to the pace and punch that once made the Maple Leafs dangerous isn’t about a new breakout or a different forecheck. It probably means rethinking how the whole roster is put together.
Are Tactics Meeting Reality with the Maple Leafs?
The Athletic‘s Luszczyszyn showed us the statistics, but this isn’t just a stats problem if you want to win in Toronto. It’s a tactical one. Speed drives offense, aids in defensive recovery, and makes skilled players dangerous in transition. When the Maple Leafs can’t match the top speed of other NHL teams, those skills become harder to leverage.
(Jess Starr/The Hockey Writers)
Coaches may need to rethink line combinations, training emphasis, and even in-game strategy. They can motivate (even using colourful language) until the cows come home. This is a team with talent, but in today’s NHL, raw skill without the ability to keep up with other teams’ pace is going nowhere fast.
The Takeaway for Fans and the Maple Leafs Organization
Maple Leafs supporters know the team has plenty of NHL-caliber talent. But talent doesn’t mean much when the rest of the league is blowing past you. Luszczyszyn’s speed chart felt like an alarm bell—one of those moments when you realize the old fable might apply: maybe the King really has no clothes.
Related: 5 Reasons for Maple Leafs Fans to Be Optimistic This Season
If Toronto can’t add pace—whether through better training habits, sharper systems, or fundamental roster changes—they risk getting caught flat-footed in a league driven by rush chances and quick strikes. The real question for fans is simple: can the Maple Leafs adjust before the game leaves them behind?
