With 18 games left in the 2025–26 regular season and little left to fight for besides pride, the Maple Leafs travel to Montreal on Tuesday night to face a Canadiens squad returning from a three-game California road trip where they posted a 1-1-1 record.
Toronto enters the matchup in a rough stretch, going 0-5-2 over its last seven games. The team has effectively slipped out of playoff contention, sitting 11 points behind the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. If the gap holds, the Leafs will miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in a decade.
Team captain Auston Matthews echoed comments made Saturday by Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper, who suggested this difficult season might be an exception rather than the start of a trend for Toronto. Matthews admitted the possibility has crossed his mind.
“Yeah, of course,” Matthews said. “I remember the Lightning missed the playoffs in 2016-17 and then the next year they were right back at the top of the division competing.”
He also pointed to Boston’s turnaround after a disappointing 2024-25 campaign.
“You look at a team like Boston this year — they had a down year and now they’re right back in the mix. Sometimes that happens,” he said. “We’ve been fortunate to make the playoffs for the last nine years. Right now, the focus is just on getting our game back. But it’s something you think about.”
Another topic from Monday’s practice at the Ford Performance Centre was the brief wave of trade speculation surrounding forward Matthew Knies ahead of Friday’s NHL trade deadline.
Although it seemed unlikely Toronto would seriously consider moving a young player seen as part of the franchise’s future, Knies’ name surfaced in rumors, including speculation linking him to a potential deal involving St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas.
Knies admitted the rumors caught him off guard.
“Yeah, a little bit,” he said. “I didn’t really pay too much attention to it. In this market, it feels like everyone becomes a target at some point. It’s a business.”
“I guess if your name comes up, it means people are paying attention,” he added. “But I try not to read too much into it.”
Despite battling a lower-body injury, Knies has produced 51 points — 16 goals and 35 assists — in 61 games this season. Even so, he believes he can contribute more offensively.
“I feel like I could be doing a lot better and helping out more on that side,” he said.
Meanwhile, Matthews has been dealing with an unusual scoring drought. The star forward is currently stuck in an 11-game stretch without a goal, something rarely seen during his career. His longest slump before this came during his rookie season in 2016-17, when he went 13 games without scoring. In the eight seasons that followed, he never went more than seven games without a goal.
“I thought it took me a little while to get going,” Matthews explained. “Then in December I felt like I started to find my game. Since we came back from the Olympic break, it’s been a tough stretch for everyone — for me personally and for us as a team.”
He noted that Toronto has struggled to generate offense during that span.
“We’re not creating enough and we’re not finishing our chances. It’s always hard to win when the puck ends up in your net more than theirs.”
Leadership will be crucial if Toronto hopes to end its slump. Matthews’ scoring struggles have coincided with the team’s poor results. Between Dec. 27 and Jan. 19, he scored 11 goals across a 12-game stretch. In the 15 games since, during which the Leafs have gone 3-9-3, he has found the net just once.
Matthews said his health has been “for the most part” fine, though he is currently on pace to finish the season with 34 goals.
Defenseman Morgan Rielly is also enduring a challenging season. The longest-tenured player on the roster — the only one remaining from the pre-Matthews era — has faced heavy criticism for his defensive play throughout the 2025-26 campaign.
Still, on his 32nd birthday Monday, Rielly kept his reflections brief.
“I think we’ve all taken some time to reflect, and everyone wants to be better,” he said. “That’s the mindset around the room, and I’m no different.”
His future could become one of the biggest storylines of the offseason. General manager Brad Treliving — if he remains in the role — may have to decide whether to ask Rielly to waive his no-movement clause. The defenseman still has four years left on a contract carrying a $7.5 million annual cap hit.
Toronto already has seven of its eight defensemen signed for next season, with only Troy Stecher set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer. Even so, few would argue the current blue line should return unchanged.
How the organization handles Rielly’s situation will likely become one of the most closely examined decisions of the offseason.