The Toronto Maple Leafs are having a season that feels like it’s stuck in second gear-and injuries have been a major part of the story. While no one’s blaming it all on bad luck, it’s hard to ignore how much the team’s health situation has spiraled, and how some of it may have been avoidable.
This all traces back to last summer, when the Leafs lost two key figures from their performance and medical staff. Rich Rotenberg, who oversaw medical, strength and conditioning, and rehab as the team’s performance director, left for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Right behind him went Sachin Raina, the Leafs’ sports scientist. The issue?
Toronto didn’t replace either of them.
That decision is now under the microscope as the team battles a wave of injuries that’s derailed momentum and exposed depth issues. According to reports, the Leafs have already lost close to 200 man-games to injury this season-eighth-most in the NHL. That’s not just a number; that’s a team constantly reshuffling lines, leaning on call-ups, and trying to find chemistry on the fly.
Veterans like Chris Tanev and Brandon Carlo are among those sidelined, and goaltender Anthony Stolarz has also missed time. Even William Nylander, one of the team’s brightest stars, has been dealing with injury issues. In a recent game, Nylander made headlines for an NSFW gesture caught on camera-but the bigger story was the suite he was sitting in: packed with injured teammates, a visual reminder of just how banged up this roster really is.
Former Leafs performance director Jeremy Bettle, who held the role from 2015 to 2019, weighed in on the situation, and his words paint a pretty stark picture. “You cannot have injury-free seasons the way they’re currently set up,” Bettle said. “And that’s no knock on anyone in particular - it just doesn’t work.”
There’s also the matter of context. This is an older team by NHL standards, and the schedule this year has been especially tight, thanks in part to the Olympic break.
That kind of compressed calendar puts even more strain on bodies that are already logging heavy minutes. Without a dedicated performance director or sports scientist in place to monitor workloads and recovery, it’s fair to wonder whether the Leafs left themselves exposed.
To be clear, no team escapes the injury bug completely. But when you’re missing key players night after night, and you’ve left major roles in your performance department unfilled, it’s hard not to connect the dots. The Leafs are paying the price-not just in bodies lost, but in games, cohesion, and possibly, playoff positioning.
At the end of the day, this isn’t just about who’s hurt. It’s about how the team is structured to prevent injuries, manage recovery, and keep players on the ice.
Right now, that structure looks shaky. And in a league where the margin between contender and pretender is razor-thin, that’s a problem Toronto can’t afford to ignore.