We’re still a month out from really gearing up for the 2025-26 season, but I just finished up revisiting the Maple Leafs’ 2024-25 season as I wrote the scouting reports for McKeen’s Hockey. A few thoughts came to mind in the dog days of August:
1. Max Domi’s L1 opportunity
It’s difficult to figure out what life without Mitch Marner will look like, in part because when we look back, Marner was always in the lineup and played a ton every night. Marner missed just one game last season – a 6-3 win against Calgary in which William Nylander scored a hat-trick.
In the win over the Flames, the Leafs moved Max Domi up to play with Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies, and the line looked really good, including a goal. When Marner returned for the next game against Seattle, Craig Berube kept Domi on the top line, and they scored again. In the next game against Vancouver, the line started together and were effective again, but they were broken up by the third period. We didn’t really see the combination again for the rest of the season.
With Domi on the top line, the Leafs tried a video game line of Nylander-Tavares-Marner, which went as expected. It’s three skilled players who want the puck and to make plays, and there is nobody to do the dirty work to make it all click. Berube reshuffled the deck as a result, but it had nothing to do with the play of the top line with Domi on it, which was actually showing quite well.
Now, it’s only two and a half games – I wouldn’t read too far into it – but it’s also not nothing. If we look at Domi’s two full years in Toronto so far, he’s played 263 minutes with Matthews at five-on-five – a reasonable sample size – and the results have been very good. They’ve won those minutes 26-15 (63.41% of goals for), owning 60.18% of shot attempts and 67.15% of expected goals.
Domi is a legitimately good passer; he recorded the seventh-most primary assists in the league in his first season and was second to Conor McDavid that year in primary assists per 60 minutes. Over his career, he has played to a 50-point pace over 82 games, which is fine production beside an elite center and budding power forward. That’s half of what Marner produced — so going to draw a lot of attention — but I find it hard to be too down on it when the Senators willingly matched a Shane Pinto-led line against them and fared fine in the matchup, and the Panthers generally shut them down. They’ve bought a third line in the process to better spread out scoring. It’s fair to think that a) Domi has the first shot to fill that spot and b) Domi can successfully facilitate Matthews and Knies.
The biggest questions are whether Domi can be respectable enough defensively – Matthews will match up against elite players – and whether Domi will be consistently engaged. When he is engaged, he is a good high-end playmaker with some jam. But when he isn’t – which was often the case last season – it is hard to watch, and his fit becomes less clear. Maybe that’s what you expect for $3.75 million, but they need a motivated and engaged Domi to step up and deliver, and whether he succeeds or not will have almost nothing to do with his talent; he’s more than skilled enough to pull it off.
2. Bobby McMann’s lineup spot
Bobby McMann battled a really tough end of last season, ending his first full year in the league on a 24-game goalless drought. It seems like an eternity ago now, but he was really good the first half of the season after he was a healthy scratch in the first game. From that point forward, McMann produced 17 goals and 25 points in 47 games before the All-Star break – a 30-goal pace – and he was shooting a fairly reasonable 14.3 percent while doing it. After the break, he scored just three goals and nine points in 27 games.
Which McMann shows up going forward is anyone’s guess, but I am curious how the Leafs’ increased depth impacts him. Most of his struggles occurred when playing down the lineup. Does the team’s depth allow them to keep him in the top six now, or is he better equipped to produce alongside better players lower in the lineup?
When McMann was up with Tavares and Nylander, the line got the puck up ice, outscored opponents 11-5, and owned 60.39% of the expected goals. McMann complemented them well with his speed, forechecking, and finishing. A few games in March really stood out against good teams like the Kings (in Los Angeles, where they were virtually unbeatable) and Colorado, as well as a dominant showing in New York against a middling Rangers team.
Similar to Domi’s scenario when up the lineup, McMann didn’t really earn a demotion, but the bottom six was so bad that he became a bit of a victim of circumstance. Against LA, for example, Berube tried a (mediocre) Domi-Laughton-Jarnkrok trio. It largely felt, at least to me, that they moved McMann to L3 with Domi and Robertson in hopes he could drive the line.
McMann is better suited to complement players with his speed and shot rather than carry a line, especially one with two players who really struggle defensively. I understand why Berube did it – his options were limited – but it’s not really an indictment of the player.
In the playoffs, McMann struggled, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It was his first time in the playoffs and it looked like it, even though he’s 28 years old. But when the Leafs closed out Ottawa in G6, he played his best game of the series and moved up the lineup back next to Tavares and Nylander in the third period. In G6 vs. Florida, McMann set up the Pacioretty insurance marker with a beautiful pass on a 2v1. Even in G7, he manufactured a great shift to start the third and picked up an assist on Domi’s 3-1 goal; at 3-1 with roughly 18 minutes left in the game, it shouldn’t have been over, but the Leafs capitulated afterward, which isn’t on McMann.
McMann has to come to camp in a contract season geared up to win a spot up the lineup. He was a little casual last preseason, and Craig Berube healthy scratched him to start the year. If McMann comes out ready to grab the L2 opportunity by the horns, though, I wouldn’t be down on it at all. He can play and produce in that spot.
3. The physicality of the Florida series
I understand not wanting to reopen old wounds, but it’s important to review where the 2025 playoffs went wrong, and I don’t think the physicality of the Florida series is talked about enough.
Since Paul Maurice coached in Winnipeg, every single one of his teams has tried to beat the snot out of the Leafs. I don’t think this series was any different. The Panthers were credited with a whopping 352 hits in the series, compared to 286 by the Leafs.
When the Leafs dumped the puck in to forecheck, the Panthers’ defense ran constant interference and broke out cleanly as a result, as the Leafs couldn’t get through it and win the puck back in deep. When the Panthers dumped pucks in, it was a highway to the Leafs’ defense, who were run consistently. Their defense was punished all series, and I’m not sure why the Leafs’ defense/forwards didn’t run the same interference the Panthers did all series.
It’s not the only reason the Leafs lost — there is never one reason a team loses a seven-game series – but the Panthers physically beat the Leafs down. Sure, the Leafs created some physical moments too, but on the balance, I don’t think we can argue it was close. Florida deserves credit – it’s a massive number of hits in a seven-game series, and their team is obviously stacked – but that’s what the Leafs will need to overcome.
Specifically, the Panthers did a really effective job of targeting Chris Tanev. If we look at Tanev’s ice time as the series evolved, it’s pretty telling. After playing a hair under 19 and a half minutes in each of the first two games, he played 23:45 in the overtime loss. The next four games: 18, 17:34, 19:32, and 17:55. In Game 5, in particular – as the player himself later admitted afterward – he wasn’t very good. Matthew Tkachuk called Tanev the head of the snake, and the Panthers went after him every chance they could. It took its toll.
On the flip side, could you argue the Leafs did the same? Was any Florida defenseman made uncomfortable at any point, really? The Panthers beat up Tanev, Knies got hurt and was essentially taken out of the series as a result, and Anthony Stolarz was knocked out of the series. What, exactly, was the Leafs’ response?
Did any Leaf really go after Sam Bennett? Did anyone even look at Matthew Tkachuk the wrong way after he leaned over the boards and told William Nylander he would try to injure him? The Panthers substituted in a grind line of Gadjovich-Nosek-Greer, which hit everything that moved, controlled play and scoring chances, and outscored the Leafs 3-0. In pretty well all the physical “swing” moments, the Leafs were on the receiving end.
In that light, their acquisition of Dakota Joshua makes some sense, and Roy, at 6’4, is no pushover. Ultimately, though, Knies has to develop into the physical and emotional leader of the team. He showed flashes of it last season, and it’s a lot to ask of him in just his third year, but he has the ability.
Overall, the Leafs simply weren’t able to win the difficult areas of the ice, get in on the forecheck, work the Florida defense, and grind the puck offensively. When they won games, the vast majority of their offense came off the rush, where they blitzed the Panthers early. When they lost games, the rush offense dried up, and they couldn’t manufacture goals the hard way. The Panthers have won 11 of their past 12 playoff series; they are the best in the business and have made a ton of teams look silly when push comes to shove. But this is the bar right now.
