With the first month of the NHL season officially over, the Maple Leafs sit at a .563 points percentage.

The wild-card cutoff last season in the East was .604 — while Philly and Pittsburgh made it in divisional berths with worse marks, the Leafs are in the Atlantic — and in the West, it would have placed them sixth. .563 is around the cutoff line, but it’s likely a number that would keep them on the outside looking in, especially in the Atlantic, where all eight teams sit above .500.

While a great start obviously would have been welcome, a month into the season, I didn’t expect the Leafs to come out scorching hot and build a big cushion. At best, I hoped they wouldn’t dig themselves a hole, which they haven’t. Last season, they also started with a lot of home games, but it was their easiest stretch of the season, and they didn’t bank enough points. This season, the Leafs’ easiest month is in January. At that time, they will need to give themselves a real buffer.

Right now, the Leafs need to build their game, keep pace in the standings, and hope some improvement as the season progresses nudges them into the right half of the conference.

With that said, what have we learned about the 2026-27 Maple Leafs through October?

For all the concern about Auston Matthews entering the season, he has been awesome, spearheading a forward group that is clearly talented and playoff-calibre. The Leafs are fourth in the league in goals per game and sixth (30 percent) on the power play. The forward group is the team’s strength, and if they can get fully healthy, they can put together four contributing lines.

On the flip side, the team defense has struggled at times, and the Leafs are 19th in goals against per game. It’s natural to look at the blue line, but the issue runs deeper. The Leafs are 16th in expected goals against per 60 minutes at 5v5 and generally grade in the mid-to-lower-mid tier in terms of what they allow. What they do give up, though, isn’t getting stopped at all: They’re 27th in 5v5 save percentage. Add in that the team doesn’t control play territorially (26th in shot attempt share, 22nd in expected goals), and by and large, they rely on their forwards to outscore their problems.

The glass-half-full take is that goaltending will arguably improve — and it’s already good enough when Anthony Stolarz plays. They have a playoff-calibre forward group that they can hope improves as the season progresses and Gavin McKenna and Easton Cowan mature. When healthy, they’ve put together effective lines capable of carrying play, even if that has gone by the wayside with the injuries of late. The same can be said on defense with Chris Tanev out, though relying on him is a tough bet at this point.

Glass half empty: If the Leafs continue to be outplayed, their shooting will eventually dry up (they rank seventh in overall shooting percentage), and if it does, the results will crater. Sergei Bobrovsky struggled last season and hasn’t had a resounding start to this campaign, either, making it hard to believe in the goaltending beyond the injury-prone Anthony Stolarz.

We’re about a fifth of the way through the season now. It’s a fine enough start to keep pace, but the Leafs will need to show genuine improvement as the season goes on — and get and stay healthy — if they want to make it to the big dance in the spring.

Notes

Photo: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
  • Auston Matthews is already nearly halfway to his production totals from last season. His 13 assists to this point are half of his total from 60 games last season, and his 24 points are just under the 53 he totaled. Most notably, he looks healthier, but the improved linemates are also a factor, including on defense. Matthews was on the ice with Jake McCabe more than any other Leafs defenseman last season — McCabe assisted on five Matthews goals last season. Raddysh set up two last week alone and has assisted on three on the season already. Roslovic seemingly has real chemistry with Matthews and is off to a big start with 16 points in 16 games. Conversely, some of Matthews’ most common linemates from last season are struggling. Matthew Knies is on an 11-game goalless drought and has five points in 12 games overall. Bobby McMann has five points in 14 games in Seattle.
  • The Leafs played back-to-back games with five penalties last week, and it is becoming a bit of an issue. They take the eighth-most penalties per 60 in the league, and their -9 penalty differential is tied for fifth-last in the league. OEL and Easton Cowan have seven minors each, three more than anyone else on the team and tied with 14 other players for ninth league-wide. You can quibble with officiating at times — which would be valid — but last week, they generally took a bunch of penalties in the needless/reckless/careless categories. Auston Matthews is the only player on the team who’s higher than plus-one in net penalties (drawn vs. taken).
  • As good as the penalty kill has been this season, the Leafs are playing with fire when they repeatedly lean on it to bail them out. They were always bound to regress — they got off to a historically good start! — and they’ve now allowed a power-play goal in four straight games. The penalty kill now ranks second behind the Dallas Stars, the only team in the league with a better shorthanded save percentage than the Leafs.
  • The Leafs have four goals from defensemen this season — two from Troy Stecher, and one each from Nick Blankenburg and Marshall Rifai. Raddysh, Rielly, and OEL have each played all 16 games so far and have no goals between them, which is pretty wild to see. Rielly has been credited with four posts/crossbars, which leads the team. Raddysh has the most shots on net by a defenseman in the league without a goal. At least both are getting chances and have been productive — Rielly has 11 assists, while Raddysh has nine. Conversely, OEL has just one point in 16 games and only 11 shots on net, a season removed from leading the Leafs’ defense in scoring with eight goals and 39 points. Scoring hasn’t been an issue for the overall team, so it’s not a huge deal, but there’s a lot of meat on the bone here. The Leafs are 25th in goals by defensemen so far this season.

Quotes

Jim Hiller, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach
Jim Hiller, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach

You had a longer practice, with probably no morning skate tomorrow. What were you looking to clean up today?

Hiller: “We were saying that we’ve practiced maybe two or three times in the last month. It’s really been something that I believe has hurt our game. We took some time today to go a little slower and work through some things. November is going to set up pretty well for us that way. I’m not going to tell you what they were, but I think we made some progress in some areas that we’ve been struggling with.”

– Jim Hiller after Friday’s practice.

One practice drill had players coming off immediately after the start. Is there something in transition on line changes that you’re seeing?

Hiller: “Just line changes. Just cleaning up our line changes a little bit. It’s an important part of the game. When you go through chances, a good chunk of them come off of line changes — being organized coming out of it, and also getting on and off the ice quickly. That’s an area of the game we wanted to touch up.”

– Jim Hiller after Friday’s practice

The Leafs have played 16 games already this season, tied for the most in the league. They’ve already gone on two West Coast road trips, and they have lost every game that started after 7 p.m. EST, including two last week. From October 6 through Halloween, they played 13 games in 26 days, which included both of those road trips. It has been a lot of hockey, following the shortest training camp and preseason in the modern era. This week, they play only once before a back-to-back on the weekend, kick-starting a run of eight games in 15 days.

Tack on a new coach, huge roster turnover, and injuries, and we can see why it’s been so disorganized on many nights and why it has often looked like a team getting by on talent more than any sort of structure. It’s not a free pass — the Oilers have a new coach, have battled a lot of injuries, have played only one fewer game than the Leafs, and have effectively completely revamped their systems. There’s at least an argument for the Leafs needing the practice time, though, and now they effectively have a week to properly practice. We’ll see if it makes any noticeable difference.

“There’s no doubt we need to improve our defensive play overall to reach our ultimate goals. But I don’t think a transaction is necessarily always the way to improve. We’ve seen a lot of internal improvement already, and I think defensive play is a five-man structure unit. Our decision-making, puck management, forwards tracking back, coaches implementing their systems and creating more comfort with that — I think we’re seeing a lot of progress organically with all of that. My job is always to look to improve the team if possible, and we’ll continue to evaluate the market and see if there’s an opportunity.”

– John Chayka on the urgency to add a defenseman

There’s a lot of focus on the defense corps specifically, but there does need to be more attention on the overall five-man unit defending. Several Leaf forwards aren’t particularly strong defensively — Nylander, Tavares, McKenna, Roslovic, Marchenko — and Cowan is a toss-up right now, depending on the night. That’s the majority of the top nine. It’s not like players like Sissons, Blueger, and Duhaime are bleeding goals against, but they have generally played checking minutes. The Leafs’ defense has issues, but the forwards do leave them out to dry far too often. Considering most, if not all, of those forwards aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, they need to find some solutions internally, and the players need to buy into their 200-foot responsibilities.

“I play bad, to be honest. I can be better and I work. I work on it… I worry about it. Every game matters. I have to try to stop every puck… Playoffs, it’s already passed. I need to work for my future.”

– Artur Akhtyamov on his start to the season with the Marlies

Through five games this season, Akhtyamov, who just turned 25 this weekend, is 2-3-1 with an .867 save percentage and a 3.14 goals-against average. The Marlies’ other goalie, Samuel Hlavaj, has also played five games but is 4-1 with an .898 save percentage and a 2.61 goals-against average. The Leafs bet on Akhtyamov after a monster playoff run, but the next step is showing he can be a workhorse and full-time starter. So far, he’s off to a poor start. It’s disappointing at a time when he should be knocking on the door, especially with the state of the Leafs’ goaltending.

Tweets

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I think everyone understands how important Chris Tanev is to the team and the impact he makes defensively. His active stick and willingness to block shots always receive a lot of attention, but his board play and ability to headman the puck so he isn’t forced to defend regularly make a notable difference. He has an underrated ability to hold onto pucks and wait for lanes to open up, rather than throwing the puck away. In his first game back, he actually drew a penalty while turning with the puck rather than tossing it away.

I’d challenge some of the categorization of these games — Bobrovsky did make some good saves against Calgary, but he spotted them a lead first, and that’s hard to reconcile. But the bigger point is that he’s been a coin-flip goalie so far, and when the team pays top dollar for goaltending — Bobrovsky is 10th among goalies in AAV — it expects good results. They haven’t been there to this point.

It’s pretty wild that Stolarz has three assists in six games to start the season. Against Edmonton, I thought his puck-moving ability made a real difference in the flow of the game. I was curious whether the Leafs’ shot-attempt numbers differed when Stolarz played vs. Sergei Bobrovsky, but they were exactly the same. Against the Oilers, though, it was especially noteworthy because they dump the puck in more than just about anyone else. The same thing applied when Stolarz got hurt against the Panthers in the playoffs. When they play opponents that aren’t heavy forecheck teams, though, it’s much less of a factor.

Five Things I Think I’d Do

Photo: Russell LaBounty-Imagn Images

1.  I think the forward group is in a tough spot right now if the current group is all the Leafs have available come Tuesday. The top line is fine, regardless of whether it’s Cowan or Nylander flanking Matthews and Roslovic. The fourth line is also solid. In between those two lines, it’s extremely difficult to put together two solid lines when the options are Cowan, Paul, McKenna, Sissons, Joshua, and Lettieri. They can put together a fun, sheltered line that can maybe score in McKenna-Paul-Cowan, but the resulting Joshua-Sissons-Lettieri line doesn’t offer much purpose.

In Vancouver, the Leafs ran McKenna-Sissons-Joshua and Cowan-Paul-Lettieri. Considering they only have one game this week and it’s a) at home, where they can control the matchups better, and b) against the Utah Mammoth, who are seventh in goals per game and 26th in goals against per game, I’d lean toward uniting Cowan and McKenna for some firepower against Utah. They can shelter the line, they’ll need goals in the game, and they can regularly put Sissons with Blueger and Duhaime to check. It’s their only game of the week, so they can run up all of their minutes, with plenty of time off after.

2.  At this point, I think I’m probably not calling up a Marlie unless Marchenko and Tavares are definitely out through the weekend. A one-game call-up isn’t really worth it at this point for me, but if they are out at least the next three games, it’s worth considering. Brendan Brisson is tied for second in the AHL in scoring with teammate Logan Shaw. It’s a shame that Luke Haymes is hurt, as he was off to a good start, and I would have liked to see him receive another look. Brisson has been productive enough to warrant a recall, while neither Groulx nor Lettieri has done enough to continue cycling into the lineup without further competition. I can understand it for another game, but not for three-plus.

3.  I think the Leafs have the right defense pairings set up now; I’d just tweak the usage. They should keep running McCabe-Raddysh until they reach at least 300 minutes together for a decent sample to evaluate. They are at 143 right now, are playing tough minutes, and have taken just 33 percent offensive-zone faceoffs. It’s not a good enough shutdown pairing for that type of deployment. It needs to be spread out a bit more across the three units, and they need some cushier offensive-zone starts, too.

The Rielly-Tanev pairing has barely played this season, but it has generally been good whenever they have played together, and the OEL-Stecher pairing has been solid so far this season. It’s a defense by committee, so they probably need to treat it that way more. I also like some of the situational adjustments they’ve done, like putting on Rielly-OEL for the odd offensive shift, and now they can do the same defensively with McCabe-Tanev/Stecher.

4.  Since the Buffalo benching, I think Jim Hiller has generally managed Gavin McKenna’s minutes well. He’s averaging 13:30 per game since then (six points in eight games), and he’s been a staple on the top power-play unit. That’s where McKenna stands as an 18-year-old in the NHL right now. He’s hovering around 43 percent of shot attempts and 42.5 in expected goals. He’s been outscored 5-10 at 5v5. He’s clearly not ready to take on the 200-foot responsibility of a true top-six role for a team hoping to compete right now, which is completely fine. That 13-14-minute range is more than enough time to continue his development, and he’s seeing prime offensive opportunities.

5.  I think I get it if the team wants to turn to Sergei Bobrovsky against Utah. He has a long pedigree of success, and it’s the beginning of November. If he doesn’t play that game, he will be off for about a week and a half until the Leafs play a back-to-back on the weekend. That said, this is a results business, and Stolarz is getting results right now, while Bobrovsky isn’t. I’d give Stolarz the Utah game and the Montreal game, and put Bobrovsky in against the Devils on Sunday. Frankly, even if the Leafs do give Bobrovsky the Utah game, short of an incredible performance, Stolarz starting the Montreal game would be my main focus. The Leafs can’t start 0-3-1 at home against Atlantic Division opponents.

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