Brandon Carlo spent a decade steering clear of social media, but that didn’t keep Toronto noise from reaching him.
The defenseman said on the Cam and Strick Podcast that life with the Maple Leafs came with a level of criticism he couldn’t fully avoid, even if he wasn’t scrolling through it himself.
“I’m not on social media or anything, so I get just the little snippets, but there was some reporters and things like that in Toronto that definitely took some moments to make it known and put it on my radar a little bit.
Overall, I think it just helped me develop thicker skin, and I’m thankful for the experience, like I said. Just to kind of go through that is good, it’s a good learning experience.”
Carlo’s run in Toronto was never going to be a quiet one. The Maple Leafs paid a steep price to land him from Boston - Fraser Minten, a conditional first-round pick and a fourth-rounder - and that kind of investment brought instant pressure. Expectations were high from the moment he arrived, and the patience around his play was thin.
That only sharpened once the results didn’t match the hype. Carlo was dealing with a fluky injury tied to a reaction to a previous surgery from years earlier, and when he returned, he wasn’t able to help push Toronto into a playoff spot. For a team that had already given up a heavy package to get him at the 2025 Trade Deadline, the frustration from Leafs Nation came quickly and loudly.
Even with that backdrop, Carlo said the experience left him better equipped for what comes next. He described Toronto as a place that toughened him up mentally, and that matters for a player who stays off social media and doesn’t want the outside noise living in his head.
Now moved on in a summer trade that sent him to St. Louis for the 73rd and 76th picks in the 2026 Draft, Carlo heads into a fresh start in the Western Conference with a different kind of takeaway from his time in Toronto: the criticism didn’t disappear, but it did make him harder to shake.
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