Instant Reaction: Maple Leafs feed Akhtyamov to the wolves in first NHL start, lose 5-3 to Islanders

Whatever this type of Toronto Maple Leafs hockey is has become completely unbearable to watch lately, and it can’t end soon enough.

With now only three games remaining in the cursed 2025-26 season, the Maple Leafs have finally decided it’s worth getting a look at some of their younger players with the Marlies. Normally this would give a team a bit of a boost, getting some motivated youth injected into the lineup to keep the other team working, but this team’s system has gotten so dry that it was essentially an invitation for their prospects to be walked all over.

Goaltender Artur Akhtyamov, who was selected in the fourth round of the 2020 NHL Draft and named an AHL all star this season, was called upon to make his very first start after Anthony Stolarz went down with an injury on Wednesday night and Joseph Woll was forced to step in for the whole game. The rookie netminder wound up facing a whopping 44 shots on goal, stopping 39 of them en route to a 5-3 loss against the Islanders. All things considered, it was a fine start for somebody of Akhtyamov’s calibre, there’s nothing he can do about the situation of the team and the state they find themselves in.

Meanwhile, recent NCAA signing Luke Haymes made his NHL debut and also registered his first point on Morgan Rielly’s third period goal. Haymes earned a call-up along with Akhtyamov and fellow Marlies teammates William Villeneuve and Ryan Tverberg, but the latter two had to wait for their NHL debuts because clearly trotting out the likes of Philippe Myers and Calle Jarnkrok is more important. Well, maybe it is if the Leafs are intending on trying to keep their first-round pick this year, but the players have more pride than that.

The Leafs will face the Florida Panthers on Sunday, who are dealing with one of the worst injury situations in the league and are also neck-in-neck with the Leafs in the race for the bottom-5.

Three more games.