Sheldon Keefe’s days with the Toronto Maple Leafs appeared to be numbered following Monday’s end-of-year press conference. Perhaps we can ditch the plural tense. Keefe took the podium to address the assembled reporters, along with a legion of fans and other journalists watching on livestreams and didn’t project much confidence during his opening remarks. Thanks for your patience. Today is always a difficult day. Really the worst day of the season, it should feel that way when you don’t meet expectations and today is certainly one of those days. We’re in the results business here. We didn’t ge ..read more

From all accounts, the Toronto Maple Leafs love Jake McCabe, and McCabe loves being with the Maple Leafs. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman had lots to say about the Maple Leafs during the latest episode of 32 Thoughts: The Podcast and made a point of bringing up McCabe’s future, with a potential contract extension coming at some point this offseason It’s going to be interesting, are they going to try to extend McCabe? I heard in addition to how he played, the organization loves how him behind the scenes, especially when they went down three games to one. A lot of the attitude came from him, the ..read more

Like every other member of the Maple Leafs who has appeared today, Sheldon Keefe looked defeated as he stepped to the podium today. He was light on excuses, but also light on answers. Keefe’s priority was taking responsibility for the Maple Leafs playoff shortcomings amidst the uncertainty of what comes next for him in his career. “We’re in the results business here and we didn’t get results, and we haven’t met expectations. As the head coach I take responsibility for that.” Sheldon Keefe takes responsibility for the Leafs 1st-round exit. ? (?: @TSN_Sports)pic.twitter.com/Rvr9y2Gjx1 — theScor ..read more

William Nylander, much like a vast majority of the Leafs, is running out of words to describe how frustrating it is to keep falling short in the first round. It was not due to a lack of effort on his part as he was the leading scorer on the team in the postseason despite missing the first three games with migraines. "Every year it's just as frustrating to lose, so it's hard to say anything else to that." William Nylander on the Leafs' first-round exit. pic.twitter.com/nw7y8ImSEy — Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 6, 2024 “It’s very frustrating,” he said “I think that we had a group that showed a l ..read more

When the team announced they had signed Tyler Bertuzzi to a one-year contract on the second day of free agency, a good part of this fan base jumped for joy for a couple of reasons. One, Brad Treliving rebounded after signing John Klingberg and Ryan Reaves the day prior and two, the Maple Leafs got themselves a good player who brings a particular element. But Bertuzzi’s time in Toronto didn’t get off to the best of starts. The 29-year-old got off to a slow start with his new team, and his struggles continued into 2024 before he caught fire in mid-February, finishing the season with 15 goals and ..read more

It’s difficult to say whether the Toronto Maple Leafs would’ve fared any better in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal playoff series against the Boston Bruins had their top forward not dealt with various ailments from Game 2 onward. Auston Matthews, who scored a franchise record 69 goals during the 2023–24 regular season, managed just four points in five games against the Bruins while working to overcome an illness and a nagging injury. The 26-year-old centre spoke about his condition throughout the series in his ‘locker clean-out’ media availability on Monday morning. “It was tough. I got ..read more

And so, the post-mortem begins on yet another first round exit for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Change is coming, folks. Buckle up. We kicked off the Monday edition of Leafs Morning Take by giving our initial thoughts on the latest Game 7 loss to the Boston Bruins. It really feels like Groundhog Day. For some reason, this one feels a bit different. It’s probably because the Leafs were right there, and then boom, it was snatched away from them again. Having said all that, we debated whether this team is anywhere closer to winning a Stanley Cup then they were when they initially drafted Auston Matth ..read more

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner reiterated his desire to remain with the franchise during the team’s end-of-year media availability on Monday. Marner is eligible to sign an extension with the Maple Leafs on July 1. He is entering the final year of his contract and if he doesn’t sign an extension with the team, he’s eligible to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2024-25 season. “That would be a goal. I’ve expressed my love for this place, this city. Obviously, I’ve grown up here. We’ll start thinking about that now and try to figure something out,” Marner said of a pos ..read more

The Toronto Maple Leafs have long struggled to overcome their playoff demons, winning only a single round through eight seasons with the core of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander at the forefront. But captain John Tavares still has belief. The Maple Leafs conducted their season-ending interviews on Monday, with players and coaches speaking before management is set to speak on Thursday and Tavares touched on several topics, including what went wrong for the Leafs in the series, his belief in the core of the team, and his upcoming contract negotiations. For everything that the ..read more

Throughout the season the moves made by Brad Treliving have come under a fair bit of scrutiny. The John Klingberg signing was a complete disaster, there’s no other way of looking at it, and both Ryan Reaves and Tyler Bertuzzi had terrible starts to their time with the Leafs. His wait-and-see approach on Nylander likely cost the Maple Leafs at least another $1M over what he could have been signed for in the summer, but at the same time there were a lot of questionable moves by Kyle Dubas that deserve similar scrutiny, and with the Leafs supposedly being built for the playoffs, now is the time t ..read more