Brad Marchand isn’t exactly known for holding back - and he didn’t change that tune this week when asked about the Toronto Maple Leafs’ early-season struggles. The Florida Panthers forward, never one to shy away from a microphone or a hot take, made it clear he’s not buying the sky-is-falling narrative surrounding the Leafs.
“If people are thinking they are out of a playoff spot for the season, they got to find a new job,” Marchand said with a grin after Panthers practice on Monday. “What are we, 25 games in?
If you think that your playoff dreams are done 25 games in, you have bigger problems. I know they don’t think that in the room.”
He’s not wrong - at least not mathematically. Heading into Tuesday night’s game in Sunrise, Fla., the Leafs sat just four points behind both the Montreal Canadiens for third in the Atlantic Division and the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. That’s hardly an insurmountable gap - but it’s also not the whole story.
“The media attention and the fan support they have in Toronto, things get blown way out of proportion up there,” Marchand added. “They’re still a good contending team.”
That last line is the one that sticks. Because while the Leafs are undeniably talented, the question isn’t whether they can be a playoff team - it’s whether they’ll actually play like one often enough to get there.
The standings may say they’re close, but the road back into the playoff picture is more complicated than a four-point deficit. Toronto would need to leapfrog six teams just to get into the mix, and that’s no small task in a tightly packed Eastern Conference.
They’ve shown some signs of life lately - two wins in their last three games - but even that modest stretch hasn’t been enough to create real separation from the bottom of the standings. As of Monday night, they were just a single point ahead of the Buffalo Sabres, who occupied the East’s basement with 24 points before their matchup with the Winnipeg Jets.
So yes, Marchand’s point about overreaction might hold some weight - but it doesn’t erase the fact that the Leafs have yet to string together the kind of consistent, smart hockey that playoff teams are built on. The talent is there, but the execution? Still a work in progress.
Tuesday night’s matchup between the Leafs and Panthers will be the first time the two sides have met since Florida bounced Toronto in seven games during last spring’s second-round playoff series. That series loss still lingers for the Leafs, and there’s no doubt they’ll be looking to make a statement in Sunrise.
But Florida’s not exactly cruising either. The Panthers, like the Leafs, have 25 points - though they’ve played one fewer game.
And while they don’t have the benefit of distance in the standings, they do have something Toronto doesn’t: the confidence that comes from back-to-back Stanley Cup championships. That experience, that muscle memory of turning it on when it matters, could be the difference as both teams try to claw their way back into postseason position.
Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad summed it up well: “I guess there’s two ways to look at it. It doesn’t bother us because we feel like we can turn this around at any time. (But) it should bother us a little bit to give us some juice to bring to games for the next little while.”
That “juice” - the urgency, the desperation - is exactly what both teams need right now. Because while it’s still early enough in the season to talk about turning things around, the clock is ticking. And in a conference where the margins are razor-thin, every point matters.
Marchand may be right that it’s too soon to write the Leafs off. But if they want to prove him right, they’ll need to do more than just hang around the playoff bubble. They’ll need to start climbing - and fast.