TLN fan survey part 2: Maple Leafs’ current and future states

It is safe to say that this point the majority of Leafs fans are quite smitten with Craig Berube and like what he has done so far.

You can point to Craig Berube winning the division, making it to the second round and further into the second round than Sheldon Keefe ever achieved. And you point to the Leafs playing a tougher, more battle-y style of hockey even if the hits and penalties don’t really show any real change from the Sheldon Keefe years. Tougher to play against is often about vibes and the sense is they improved under Berube but still have a way to go.

On the other hand, possession numbers took a step back, overall points weren’t as good as the best years of Keefe, the Leafs still haven’t tasted the Conference Finals, and there was a reliance on goaltending to bail the team out too frequently. Berube was right for a lot of players but not everyone, and when it came to the playoffs, Berube seemed just as stubborn with the lineup card as Sheldon Keefe.

All that said, despite the 8 ranking being the most prevalent score, the average and median result of 7 seems to acknowledge that Berube is likely a middle of the field coach in the NHL.

The Treliving story isn’t completely different from Craig Berube’s results. There is definitely a bit more skepticism on the GM, but 8 was still the most prevalent score, with a median score of 7, and an average score of 6.3.

The Tavares and Knies contracts sit well with the majority of Leafs fans. Getting something for Ryan Reaves is exciting if you forgot who brought Reaves in to begin with, and there are success stories like Stolarz and Tanev that work in his favour as well as simply not being Kyle Dubas and not re-signing Marner is enough for a lot of people.

The contrast of that are two trade deadlines worth of whiffs, including this one which cost the Leafs, 2 first round picks, Nikita Grebenkin, and Fraser Minten for a fourth line centre and 4/5th defenceman. There’s the Domi and Kampf contracts that stick out as well. And while it was very early in his time in Toronto, there was the failure to move on from Marner when he could. Personally, I’m going to hang that one as well as giving Sheldon Keefe a test run under him on Brendan Shanahan.

Max Domi seems like the heir apparent when it comes to who is written in next to Knies and Matthews, although I’d suggest whoever sits there will also see some of their time go to William Nylander based on situation. Domi had a decent run with Matthews when Tyler Bertuzzi was the on their line as well, and Knies as a substitution of Bertuzzi makes it seem like that combination could ride again.

Of course, Domi is a bit of a known in Toronto and he has limitations. That’s what has likely opened the door for strong consideration being given to Matias Maccelli as well. Along with Domi, he has had success in a playmaking capacity, but this feels like a “throwing him to the wolves” situation, demanding he rebound from his 18-point season to replacing Mitch Marner.

What is interesting here as well is that fans seem to want to keep Nylander and Matthews separated and spread the offence around as much as possible.

The next couple of questions were related to which Leaf improves the most and which one declines the most from their performances in 2024-25.

The good times are projected to keep coming for Matthew Knies and it will be great if that is true. A lot more is going to be asked of him on the top line this season. There is some excitement about what the first pro year of hockey for Easton Cowan will bring and there seems to be a belief that Scott Laughton will find his way off the fourth line at some point.

Matias Maccelli and Simon Benoit round out the notable selections when it comes to most improved and one of the general themes of this survey was there are a lot of people really excited for Maccelli.

On the other side of things, Oliver Ekman-Larsson is very much expected to decline and was followed by Max Domi and David Kampf as the next most concerning players. Morgan Rielly was up there as well and in fifth there is still a subsection of Leafs fans stubbornly predicting the decline of John Tavares.

Auston Matthews and Bobby McMann are the two interesting ones here, as both had a pretty even divide of projected improvements vs. declines. It’s hard to think of any worse outcome for the Leafs than a further Matthews decline, but when it comes to regular season numbers and no Mitch Marner, maybe some peace needs to be made with that possibility.

Sticking with that exact topic, there was a bit of a divide on how many goals Matthews would score in 2025-26. The past four full seasons have seen Matthews go from 60 to 40 to 69 to 33. It seems like he’s due to push sixty again or at least stick with the sub-40s, but neither of those were popular choices.

The median response put him in the safe range of 40-49, followed closely by the more optimistic choice of 50-59. As irrationally hopeful as fans can be sometimes, it’s worth noting that 70+ goals was an option and no one selected it, even jokingly.

Anthony Stolarz hit his NHL career best total for games played with 34 regular season games last season. When you combine his seven playoff games, his 41 games played made for the third most active season of hockey behind a 47 game AHL season in 2015-16 and a 50 game season in the NAHL in his draft year.

This is probably the most balanced of all of the responses we received and the realistic response of 30-39 regular season games as both the median and most prevalent response seemed fitting.

When it comes to regular season, winning the division again doesn’t seem to be an expectation. In fact, even a little step back to 2nd in the division wasn’t as common as grabbing the third spot.

In someways, I think the Wild Card spot selectors are trying to will a scenario into the world where Toronto avoids Florida completely and tries to dominate Metropolitan Division opponents instead.

As for the miss the playoff people, the right injury combinations can make anything possible but even a grump like me can’t see it happening outside a worst case scenario.

Why not the Leafs? Why not the Leafs with tempered expectations. While Leafs fans are predicting a regular season setback, the lack of Marner and time to grow as a team over 82 games will lead to better results come playoff time.

And if you combine the Cup Finalists with Cup Winner numbers, the Stanley Cup Finals is even a more prevalent prediction than a second round exit. The summer is truly for BeLeafing.

There’s no ignoring that the done in one and won’t make the playoffs crowd still accounts for 28% of the respondents, but no one is saying that the Leafs don’t have a divided fanbase.

Speaking of that divided fanbase, we asked for some bold predictions for 2025-26 and you didn’t disappoint:

• “Rielly has best offensive season with a full training camp and year of Carlo next to him” and “Morgan Rielly will score 15 goals”
• “The Leafs D is exposed as horrid.” and in contrast “top defensive team”
• “Easton Cowan nets 20 goals”, “Easton Cowan will be a mainstay next season”, “Cowan will approach 40 points” and “Tre special: trade Cowan for a centreman to play on the third line who is either scratched or plays sheltered fourth line minutes in the playoffs.”
• “Leafs as a team score more goals and assists without Marner on the team than they did with.”
• “Leafs move on from Domi” and other side of that “Max Domi gets 60 points”
• “Maccelli matches Marner in assists”, “Matias Maccelli scores 25+ goals”, and “Marcelli with 50+ assists”
• “Joshua gets top line minutes and scores 20” OR “Dakota Joshua moves to 2nd line left wing”
• “Leafs add Mason Marchment at the trade deadline”
• “Robertson scores 30 on 1st line”
• “Nicolas Roy scores 20 goals” and “Nic Roy hits 80 points and gets to be the new 2C with Tavares on the wing.”
• “Knies gets 40 goals” and “Knies gets 85 points”
• “Nylander scores 50 goals and 100 points”
• “They beat the panthers in the playoffs “
• “Dead last in their division” and “There scoring drops significantly, which causes a 10 game losing streak and Berube gets fired around the halfway point”
• “Stupid fans will start booing Matthews”, “Matthews gets hurt, sell-off of veterans at the trade deadline, and Leafs miss the playoffs.” OR the optimistic approach to Matthews, “Mathews wins the rocket Richard “

There is quite an array of opinions there and no one can accuse Leafs fans of not being bold when it comes to predictions.

Finally…

Just for the purpose of curiosity as well as getting a sense of who is responding to this survey, we asked who is your favourite all-time Leaf. Not who is the best all-time Leaf, but favourite. Most interesting but maybe not surprising is that wasn’t a single Marner fan in the group. What is also interesting is that of the current Leafs, they combined for just 9% of the responses, which would put them 4th on the list. (Auston Matthews had the highest individual percentage at 3.8%.

Of the numerous responses, only six players cracked the 5% mark:

Probably not surprising that Mats Sundin reigns supreme. A special shoutout to whoever responded with Damian Rhodes. When it comes to “remembering a guy” moments, Damian Rhodes and Todd Warriner are probably two of my favourites.

A big thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. And if you did participate, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve held back the responses to play GM and suggest a trade or signing. Some of those will appear shortly in a “Who says no?” post.