Things are unraveling fast in Toronto, and the Maple Leafs are running out of runway.
With the Olympic break looming and the trade deadline not far behind, the Leafs are staring down a harsh reality: their season is slipping away, and the clock is ticking. The standings don’t lie - and neither does the vibe around the team. This isn’t just a rough patch; it’s a full-on spiral.
And when things go south like this, tough questions start getting louder. The biggest one? What’s next for Auston Matthews.
Let’s be clear - Matthews is the face of the franchise, the captain, and one of the league’s elite centers. But when a team with this much talent finds itself near the bottom of the conference, no name is too big to be floated in trade chatter. It’s not that the Leafs are actively shopping Matthews, but when a team underperforms this dramatically, everything gets put on the table.
Matthews, for his part, isn’t shying away from the noise.
“I mean, you kind of leave that up to the management,” he said after Thursday night’s loss to Seattle. “For us, it’s about the next game. It’s about winning and starting to put ourselves in a much better position than we are now.”
That’s the captain saying all the right things - focused on the next shift, the next game, the next chance to claw back. But beneath the surface, there’s no denying the frustration. The Leafs have dug themselves into a serious hole.
Toronto sits at the bottom of the Atlantic Division with 57 points and a minus-12 goal differential - a stat that tells you a lot about where this team is defensively and how often they’re chasing games. Only two teams in the entire Eastern Conference are worse off right now.
And here’s where it gets tougher: more than half of their remaining games are on the road. For a team that’s already struggling to string together wins, that’s a brutal stretch ahead.
Road trips can galvanize a team - or bury them. The Leafs need it to be the former, but they haven’t shown many signs they’re ready to flip that switch.
As for Matthews’ future, it’s not necessarily about this season’s trade deadline. But the bigger picture is starting to come into focus.
If he doesn’t believe this team is built to contend - not just now, but in the near future - then it’s fair to wonder how long he’ll want to stick around. Mitch Marner already walked last year, and that move sent a message: the core isn’t untouchable anymore.
The Leafs don’t have to make the playoffs to salvage some pride this season, but they do need to show some fight. They need to give Matthews - and the rest of the hockey world - a reason to believe there’s still something worth building around in Toronto.
Because right now, the questions are louder than the answers.