Toronto Maple Leafs

Thirteen cups, and then nothing since 1967

The franchise began play in 1917 as the Toronto Hockey Club, spent a season as the Arenas and then eight years as the St Patricks. Conn Smythe took control on 14 February 1927 and renamed the club after the maple leaf, a symbol he had come to associate with Canadian soldiers during the First World War. The team left Mutual Street Arena for Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931, played its last game there on 13 February 1999, and moved downtown to what was then the Air Canada Centre and is now Scotiabank Arena.

Toronto has won thirteen Stanley Cups. The last of them came in 1966-67, which by the end of last season amounted to the longest championship drought in the league. Nineteen players have had their numbers retired by the club, which is owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. None of that history is decorative in Toronto: it is the yardstick every roster is measured against, and it is the reason a good regular season counts for very little here.

The Matthews core and where it stopped

Auston Matthews was taken first overall in 2016, only the second player the club had ever drafted at number one, after Wendel Clark in 1985. Around him the Leafs assembled a forward group of Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares that produced regular-season results almost every year and almost nothing beyond them.

The high-water mark was 2024-25. Toronto finished first in the Atlantic Division with 108 points, beat Ottawa in six games in the first round, and then lost a seventh game at home to the Florida Panthers in the second. It was the closest that version of the team came, and it turned out to be the end of it.

A 30-point fall

Marner left in a sign-and-trade with the Vegas Golden Knights in the summer of 2025; Toronto received the depth centre Nicolas Roy. What followed was the worst single-season decline in club history. The Leafs went 32-36-14 for 78 points, a drop of 30 points, and finished bottom of the Atlantic Division and 15th in the Eastern Conference.

Nylander led the team with 79 points, Tavares had 71 and Matthew Knies 66, but the scoring behind them thinned out and the goaltending never settled — five different netminders appeared over the season. Matthews tore the MCL in his left knee in a grade-three injury in mid-March after a knee-on-knee collision with Anaheim's Radko Gudas, and had surgery on 19 March. General manager Brad Treliving was dismissed on 30 March. The club was eliminated from playoff contention on 2 April and closed the year on 15 April with a 3-1 loss in Ottawa, a seventh straight defeat. Head coach Craig Berube was fired on 13 May.

The contrast was hard to avoid: in his first season in Vegas, Marner reached the Stanley Cup Final and led the playoffs in scoring with 21 points in 16 games.

Chayka, Hiller and the lottery

John Chayka took over as general manager on 3 May 2026. Two days later the Leafs won the draft lottery, jumping from fifth to first. On 17 June they hired Jim Hiller as the 41st head coach in franchise history. Hiller, 57, had gone 93-58-24 in three seasons with the Los Angeles Kings before being let go on 1 March, and had worked as a Toronto assistant from 2015 to 2019, so he already knew Matthews, Nylander and Morgan Rielly. Chayka said player feedback shaped the hire and that he wanted a room where "accountability and trust can coexist". Hiller framed the job around the spirit of the team rather than systems.

At the draft at KeyBank Center in Buffalo in late June, with Justin Bieber sent out to announce the selection, Toronto took Gavin McKenna first overall. The 18-year-old left winger from Whitehorse, Yukon, had scored 51 points in 35 games at Penn State and was Central Scouting's top-ranked North American skater. He is the third number one pick in club history and only the second First Nations player taken first, after Dale McCourt in 1977; he wore beaded wolf pins for his Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in heritage on draft night. Chayka's stated priority was character: "We want to make sure we get the person right, first and foremost."

The summer rebuild

On 1 July the Leafs signed Sergei Bobrovsky to a three-year contract worth $21 million, finally addressing a position they had patched over for years. Bobrovsky, who turns 38 this season, won two Stanley Cups in Florida and was twice voted the league's best goaltender, the second time with Columbus in 2017. He is reunited in Toronto with his former Panthers partner Anthony Stolarz.

The rest of the summer was churn rather than fireworks: Jack Roslovic on a two-year deal from Edmonton, Teddy Blueger and Colton Sissons as free agents, Brandon Duhaime on 2 July, Emil Andrae and Samuel Hlavaj in early July, Nick Paul acquired from Tampa Bay, and defenceman Darren Raddysh added to the back end. Max Domi failed his physical at camp and is out indefinitely after complications from summer surgery.

Training camp opened on 16 September. Matthews, speaking that day, said the new general manager had made "some great changes" and described himself as all-in on the season.

Where they stand, late September 2026

Matthews returned to the ice in the pre-season opener against Montreal at Scotiabank Arena on 19 September, his first appearance since the knee injury, and looked sharp — a primary assist and six shots. Toronto lost the game 4-1. McKenna, introduced as part of the starting lineup, got a roaring ovation, played 20:39 on a line with Tavares and Nylander, took three shots and did not score. "It was super cool," he said afterwards. "To know I got this fan base behind me, it feels good." Hiller liked the performance but told him to get closer to the puck in the offensive zone rather than waiting for passes. Raddysh scored on the power play in his Toronto debut. A second split-squad meeting, with Ottawa, followed on 23 September.

The regular season opens at home against Montreal on Tuesday 29 September and runs to 10 April 2027 at Madison Square Garden — 84 games, the first time the league has played that many since 1993-94. Toronto has three six-game home stands, including 3 to 14 November, two seven-game road trips, one running from 22 December to 7 January, 11 back-to-backs and 16 games in March. Tickets went on general sale the week of 17 August, with priority registration through the club's Fan Access system.

The building

Scotiabank Arena holds 18,800 and opened in 1999. Outside it, Maple Leaf Square fills up before puck drop with a DJ, hosts and a large videoboard over the main entrance, all of it free to stand in; Legends Row, the run of bronze statues of Dave Keon, Frank Mahovlich, Wendel Clark and others, sits alongside. Inside, the club leans on organist Jimmy Holmstrom between whistles and an in-house DJ taking requests, honours a service member every night, and sends minor hockey players out with flags. Carlton, the mascot, works the bowl.

It is the most expensive ticket in the league. The 2023-24 Fan Cost Index put a Leafs night at over $700 against a league average of $432, and face value for a midweek game against an ordinary opponent runs from about $85 standing, $115 in the upper bowl and $200 to $425 in the lower. Seats are difficult to get outside the secondary market. Reviewers rate the sightlines and the food — Cherry Street BBQ, Kibo Sushi, The Poutinerie and six bars among them — as highly as any arena in the sport, while noting the corporate lower bowl can be quiet until something happens.