Troy Stecher was a breath of fresh air when he arrived in Toronto, where the Maple Leafs needed him far more than they ever should have.
When the Leafs claimed Stecher off waivers from Edmonton in mid-November, their blue line was in rough shape. Chris Tanev was injured, Brandon Carlo was battling injuries and severe underperformance, Philippe Myers was Philippe Myers, and the Leafs were regularly dressing five left-handed defensemen while struggling badly to advance the puck properly.
The team was playing slowly. The defense couldn’t move the puck cleanly, and the Leafs’ system under Craig Berube had become painful to watch: too much glass and out, flips into the neutral zone, and dump-ins at the other end, too often without a puck recovery.
Then Stecher showed up and played with his hair on fire. He was hungry after being waived by Edmonton, and it almost felt as though his natural instincts hadn’t yet been coached out of him by the system in Toronto. He retrieved pucks with urgency, moved his feet, lugged the puck when the first pass wasn’t available, and attempted some actual plays with it.
It wasn’t revolutionary hockey, but on this team, it might as well have been.
Stecher’s breath-of-fresh-air arrival in Toronto
The Leafs’ original waiver claim was logical and virtually risk-free. Stecher was playing on a fully buriable $787,500 contract, shot right, owned nearly 600 games of NHL experience, and addressed two obvious needs: pace and puck movement from the right side.
As we wrote when the Leafs claimed him, the defense was struggling to move pucks cleanly out of its zone or play with enough pace. Berube publicly acknowledged that the plays were available, but his team wasn’t seeing or making them confidently enough.
Stecher immediately helped.
After initially playing under 14 minutes in each of his first two appearances, his performance forced the issue. The Leafs moved Jake McCabe back to his natural left side beside Stecher, and the pairing provided the team with some badly needed stability. McCabe no longer had to manage the puck on his offside, while Stecher supplied puck movement and pace from the right.
During his first 28 games as a Leaf, Stecher recorded 10 points and averaged 20:27 per night. For a player who had averaged roughly 13-14 minutes during his final two seasons in Edmonton, it was an enormous increase in responsibility.
For a stretch in early December, it became almost comical. Stecher averaged 23:51 over five games, collected three points, and posted a plus-10 rating. McCabe averaged 23:50 and was plus-11 over the same stretch. Stecher became an easy player to cheer for, not just on the ice but in his media interviews:
Seventh team of my career… Career, in a sense, in my mind, is kind of on the line, and you either show up and you play, or you fail and you sink.
Stecher and McCabe took on difficult competition and zone starts while producing respectable underlying results. They won their minutes 17-16 during their extended run together and nearly broke even in expected goals. At one point, they were up 13-4 in five-on-five goals and held an advantage in high-danger opportunities despite playing in a matchup role.
For a waiver claim making close to the league minimum, Stecher wasn’t merely filling in. He was legitimately helping move the needle.
The Leafs needed Stecher far more than they should have
The obvious qualifier is that a good team shouldn’t need Troy Stecher to play 20-plus minutes per night for months at a time.
Stecher has carved out an impressive NHL career as an undrafted, undersized defenseman, but his career has established what he is: a useful depth player who can move the puck, play with pace, compete, and give a team credible minutes when called upon. He is not a true 19 or 20-minute defenseman, and if he is regularly playing that much, it probably says something unflattering about the rest of the blue line.
In Toronto’s case, it said plenty. Tanev’s injury left an enormous hole on the right. Carlo’s injuries and disastrous season prevented him from filling it. Myers offered little with or without the puck, while the coaching staff appeared reluctant to trust any of its options on the farm (which were quite limited, to be fair, although I’d argue Matt Benning never got a fair shake after a decent call-up showing against NYI). Stecher repeatedly became the best option in a bad situation.
He averaged 19:46 over his 58 games as a Leaf, his highest ice time with any team since his early years in Vancouver. He scored three goals and 14 points, his highest point total since recording 17 for Vancouver in 2019-20.
Stecher also played a legitimate penalty-killing role. He averaged 2:08 per game shorthanded for Toronto, and in December, when the Leafs owned the league’s top-ranked penalty kill, Stecher led the team’s defensemen in shorthanded ice time per game.
He deserves credit for handling all of it as well as he did. Still, the Leafs were asking a depth defenseman in his early 30s to carry a workload he hadn’t handled in years. Naturally, the initial surge wasn’t going to last forever.
The inevitable slowdown — and some questionable deployment
The shine eventually wore off to some degree. In Stecher’s first 29 games with the Leafs, he was on the ice for a 28-20 advantage in even-strength goals. From the beginning of the team’s season-destroying five-game homestand onward, he was outscored by 17. By early April, he had been outscored 46-36 through 54 games as a Leaf while sitting well below water in shot share and scoring chances.
Stecher himself acknowledged the drop-off:
“My game definitely dropped off at a certain point, too. There was a lull,” Stecher said after the season. “I’m not oblivious to the fact that my game slipped a little bit at the end of the season.”
Some of it was predictable regression. Stecher arrived desperate to establish himself, received a major opportunity, and ran with it for six or eight weeks. Eventually, the outsized workload and the team’s general disintegration caught up with him.
But the coaching staff didn’t always put Stecher — or the rest of the defense — in the best position to succeed. McCabe-Stecher was initially disrupted by McCabe’s injury in early January, but the Leafs curiously declined to reunite it consistently after he returned. The pairing had outscored opponents 13-4 at five-on-five while carrying the high-danger opportunities in a matchup role, yet Stecher was eventually pushed down beside Simon Benoit as the coaching staff tried to accommodate other pairings. When McCabe-Stecher briefly reunited amid Benoit’s absence, it remained effective, only for Berube to split it up again upon Benoit’s return.
Before the Olympic break, McCabe-Carlo and OEL-Stecher began to show some signs of momentum. After the break, the coaching staff bafflingly abandoned it. The Leafs returned to OEL on his offside beside McCabe, Rielly with Carlo, and Benoit with Stecher — essentially the same combinations that had failed during the season-destroying January slide. As we noted in the OEL player preview, the results were predictable.
None of this totally absolves Stecher of his own dip in play. He stopped jumping into the play as often, became less noticeable with the puck, and no longer supplied the same spark. But the Leafs also took a useful waiver claim, overextended him, moved away from the pairings that worked, and then placed him in combinations that magnified the limitations of everyone involved.
Stecher’s new contract, and his value beyond his on-ice role
Stecher quickly became a fan favourite because he played hard, competed well above his size, and wore his emotions openly. As mentioned, he was also a breath of fresh air in media availabilities.
He has a good head for the game and isn’t afraid to speak honestly about what is happening around the team. He candidly talked about the team “lacking joy,” discussed tactical issues thoughtfully, and took accountability when his own performance slipped.
He also genuinely embraced Toronto. Having played for seven organizations, Stecher was in a credible position to compare the Leafs’ resources and treatment of their players to the rest of the league. He spoke glowingly about the organization and made it clear he wanted to remain in the market.
As Anthony mentioned after the Leafs re-signed Stecher for two years at $1.35 million annually, it is important — particularly in Toronto — to have players who can connect genuinely with the fan base. The Leafs have often been a really buttoned-up group overall. Stecher’s competitiveness and willingness to speak passionately about the team, the market, and the game were welcome additions.
The new contract carries little risk. The two-year term was mildly surprising, but the cap hit is almost entirely buriable if his game falls off dramatically. One way of framing it: He was retained for nearly one-third of Carlo’s previous cap hit while providing far more with the puck and stronger five-on-five results last season.
Stecher’s role in 2026-27
Ideally, Stecher enters the season as the seventh defenseman or as part of a genuine competition with Emil Andrae for the final spot in the top six. Andrae is inexperienced but promising, and the Leafs should want to find out whether he can gain real traction this season. If he does, Stecher gives the team a credible veteran who can step into the lineup whenever injuries or poor performance inevitably strike.
If Andrae isn’t catching on in Toronto, Stecher is quality insurance, and he offers the advantage of not needing to play a lefty (whether OEL or Andrae himself) on his offside. A healthy top six featuring Stecher would provide natural-handedness equilibrium. To wit:
Jake McCabe — Darren Raddysh
Morgan Rielly — Chris Tanev
Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Troy Stecher
The exact pairings can be debated, but three lefties and three righties alone gives the Leafs a leg up compared to last year. Defensemen can receive pucks on their forehands, face up ice more naturally, and make cleaner first passes without needing to turn pucks from their backhands to their forehands under pressure, which only further complicated the life of the Leafs’ blue line throughout 2025-26.
Stecher also owns over 600 games of NHL experience and has played for seven organizations. He understands how to sit, stay ready, and jump into a lineup without complaint. His right-handedness, mobility, character, and ability to make a decent first pass are all useful qualities in a depth defenseman.
The Leafs should obviously not enter 2026-27 planning for Stecher to play 20 minutes per night. If he is carrying that kind of workload again, something has probably gone horribly wrong. But injuries and underperformance are inevitable over 84 games, and Stecher has shown he can step in, play with urgency, and give the team honest minutes when needed.
Last season, the Leafs needed him far more than they ever should have. This season, he should be a valuable depth piece precisely because they hopefully won’t.
