It has been almost six years to the day since the Toronto Maple Leafs last lost six hockey games in a row. That losing streak, which was bookended by a 4-2 loss in Las Vegas to the Golden Knights on November 19th, 2019, doomed Mike Babcock’s fate as head coach of Toronto. I don’t think Craig Berube is one loss away from being fired, but the Leafs are in danger of losing their sixth in a row tonight against the St. Louis Blues. I reluctantly bring up Babcock and the 2019-20 Leafs, only to exhibit just how bad Toronto is playing right now. These are times that are almost unprecedented for the Buds ever since Auston Matthews was drafted.
The team’s issues have been well documented. Toronto has allowed more goals at five-on-five than any other team in the league. They struggle to generate sustained offensive pressure, and two-thirds of their defensive core is seemingly unable to make a breakout pass to a teammate. There are myriad reasons why these issues persist, two of which are that the team is poorly constructed and, at this moment in time, is being very poorly coached. But I’d like to focus on something positive about Toronto’s start to the season: the play of some of their younger players.
The Leafs are one of the older teams in the NHL, and Brad Treliving has built this team that way on purpose; he believes in the importance of experience. The team’s prospect pool is also one of the weakest in the league, as Treliving has traded away some of his promising prospects and future first-round picks to try to help the Leafs win a cup. While I may have disagreed with the players he chose to trade for in exchange for those prospects, I certainly don’t fault him for being aggressive. But now, with the Leafs sitting 28th in the standings, and the players that Treliving acquired making little to no impact, the lack of young talent is a little worrying.
Thankfully, one of the younger players that Treliving was unable to trade away, Nick Robertson, has been one of the Leafs’ best players to start the year after finally getting a prolonged chance to play in the top six. Robertson’s five goals and six assists for eleven points aren’t going to blow anyone away, but he is third on the team in expected goals at five on five and has been noticeably better than every Leaf forward outside of the big four guys. The 24-year-old has shown that he can consistently handle the physicality of the NHL on a night-to-night basis and is one of the team’s best forecheckers. His skill has always been evident, and no one ever questioned his work ethic, but Robertson was too often boxed out of the dangerous areas of the ice and outmuscled in board battles. That is not the case this year, and his goal on Saturday against Chicago was a perfect example of his improvements in those aspects.
Although Robertson requested a trade over a year ago from Toronto due to a lack of opportunity, there is no way Treliving can give him up now. The reality is that he is one of the Leafs’ top-six forwards, he is cheap, and he should continue to be given a role that matches how he has played.
Of course, the Leafs’ best young player is Matthew Knies, who has also started the year very productively with 22 points in 19 games. The most promising thing about Knies, though, is that he clearly has more to give. The Arizona-born winger has just five goals so far and, despite his better-than-point-per-game record, hasn’t been as dynamic as we are used to seeing. However, I was encouraged by Knies’s performance on Saturday as he was tasked with driving his own line for the first time as a Leaf and seemed motivated by that challenge. What excited me most was Knies’s near-immediate chemistry with rookie Easton Cowan. The two combined for a couple of grade A scoring chances but were unlucky not to find the back of the net.
This is a combination that Craig Berube has to stick with, as both players have elite skill and a knack for finding their way to the middle of the ice in the offensive zone. I love the fact that Berube has given Cowan a chance to assert himself right away, and Cowan has looked perfectly comfortable playing in the top six in the NHL. The goals aren’t flowing yet, but Cowan has a 61% expected goals share at even strength in his eleven games with the big club, which is by far the best on the Leafs. All that means is that when Cowan is on the ice, his team has dominated play and is generating high-quality chances. The Leafs’ 2023 first-rounder has also been on the ice for more Toronto scoring chances per 60 minutes than any other Leaf.
When Cowboy plays, good things happen, and unless something drastic occurs, there is no reason he should be in the AHL.
Speaking of the AHL, the last young Leaf I want to talk about is Jacob Quillan. Quillan signed with Toronto as an undrafted free agent out of college in early 2024 after winning a national championship with Quinnipiac University. He has since played almost exclusively for the Marlies and was called up once last year to make his NHL debut, in which he got knocked out of the game thanks to a Nick Cousins knee-on-knee hit.
Thankfully, Quillan didn’t miss any time due to that injury and had a solid first season of professional hockey, recording 18 goals and 19 assists in 67 AHL games. He then had an impressive preseason this year before being sent down to the Marlies. He has carried that preseason form into his start to the season and has been the Marlies’ best player so far. Quillan has two goals and twelve assists in fourteen games in the AHL and is playing in all situations for the Leafs’ farm team. He just got called up by the big club yesterday due to the avalanche of injuries that have overcome the Leafs, and with Nic Roy out for at least a week, Quillan should slide right into that role.
The skinny on Quillan is that he is responsible defensively with offensive upside. He will immediately be one of the Leafs’ faster players and has produced goals and assists at each stop throughout his career. I hope that he is given a chance to play with skilled players, and I see no reason why he wouldn’t be a good fit to take Roy’s spot and centre a line with Cowan and Knies. When you think about how bad Max Domi has been this year defensively (outscored 18-8 at five on five), it makes plenty of sense to ride with Quillan and see if he can’t give you a cheaper, younger upgrade on what Domi brings while Domi plays further down the lineup.
Toronto is not a Stanley Cup contender as currently presented, not even close. The front office needs to start turning over some of this roster, and now is a perfect time to begin. Keep pushing Robertson, Knies, and Cowan to be essential parts of this roster, and start to see what you have with guys like Quillan, Luke Haymes and maybe young defensemen like William Villeneuve and Henry Thrun. I don’t know how they can play worse than Phillipe Myers or Simon Benoit. I genuinely don’t think it is possible. This isn’t throwing in the white flag; it’s the opposite. We are not early in the season anymore. We are a quarter of the way through; the current roster is not working. Toronto needs to start winning games, and pumping in young blood is the best way forward to do that.
Stats courtesy of moneypuck.com and Natural Stat Trick
The Morning Skate 