{"id":553629,"date":"2026-04-16T04:09:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/553629\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T04:09:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:09:21","slug":"kinda-relieved-maple-leafs-most-disappointing-season-ends-with-a-shrug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/553629\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Kinda relieved\u2019: Maple Leafs\u2019\u00a0most disappointing season ends with a shrug"},"content":{"rendered":"

KANATA, Ont. \u2014 Sometimes the end arrives\u00a0with a bang<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Screaming and fighting. Hung heads and blank stares. Spilled beer and sweaters thrown in disgust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A frenzied and dramatic winner-take-all exclamation point on an eight-month-long journey.<\/p>\n

Edge-of-your-seat, analyze-to-death stuff.<\/p>\n

Nah, the final page of the 2025-26 Leafs\u2019 season \u2014 a 3-1 loss to the surging and playoff-bound Ottawa Senators on a rainy Wednesday in Kanata, Ont. \u2014 was turned quietly and without emotion. Like the acknowledgments at the end of a tragic novel.<\/p>\n

The final chapter of this sad tale was written weeks ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And so, the Maple Leafs, coasting through a seventh consecutive loss with preseason-like electricity, skated through the motions at the Canadian Tire Centre. They got outshot (38-20) for the 17th time in their final 19 games.<\/p>\n

James Reimer<\/a>, the goaltender who tried out for the Leafs in camp only to land a gig a few hours east, got the win.<\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s organist cued up the locals for a few jolly but half-hearted choruses of\u00a0\u201cLeafs suck!\u201d\u00a0A\u00a0\u201cMatthews leaving!\u201d\u00a0chant burst out late from the upper bowl.<\/p>\n

One man wearing a blue-and-white replica sweater and sitting front row pressed a handmade\u00a0FIRE BERUBE placard against the glass in Toronto\u2019s end throughout warmup and at various stoppages.<\/p>\n

Eventually, that fan lost interest too.<\/p>\n

It was the type of uninspired performance that would make Rick Bowness blow a lid.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s shrugs and acceptance and how soon can we get outta town?<\/p>\n

The Maple Leafs will clean out their lockers first thing Thursday morning, speak a few final clich\u00e9s, then scatter for summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to be going to the playoffs,\u201d Toronto defenceman Simon Benoit<\/a> said. \u201cIt feels like s— to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most disappointing season in the franchise\u2019s 109-year history ends with a lottery-odds-boosting seven-game losing skid. Toronto went 0-for-April, putting a stamp on its worst year-over-year decline ever.<\/p>\n

From 108 points and its lone regular-season Atlantic crown to 78 points and last in division. From a plus-37 goal differential to a minus-46, worst in the East. A 30-point swing in the standings and an 83-goal swing on the scoreboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cTough finish, but I guess kinda relieved a little bit,\u201d Nick Robertson said. \u201cYou\u2019re battling a lot of thoughts, a lot of emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did it all go so wrong?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of reasons,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cLack of execution, buy-in, emotion on everyone\u2019s part, including myself. You know, it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s unfortunate how it ended.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans will cling to hope that the Maple Leafs, locking up fifth-last place in the NHL, won\u2019t get leaped in May\u2019s draft lottery by one of the six teams below them in\u00a0the reverse standings<\/a>. And maybe, just maybe, Toronto wins the lottery outright. The odds of that are 8.5 per cent.<\/p>\n

Heck, the Leafs did precisely that in their last lost season, rewarded handsomely for their pain in 2016.<\/p>\n

No team gave up more shots this season than Toronto (2,660). No franchise did less to stop the bleeding or act alarmed when the \u201ccheck engine\u201d light blinked bright orange.<\/p>\n

This 18-wheeler didn\u2019t soar off the cliff in a blaze of\u00a0Thelma & Louise\u00a0glory. It sputtered out of gas 10 miles from the nearest station, and everyone inside figured, ah, well, might as well catch a nap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a disappointing season, definitely,\u201d said Craig Berube, who outlasted GM Brad Treliving and has two more years on his contract with MLSE. \u201cI\u2019m not going to express all my opinions to everybody. I\u2019m going to keep that inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quietly swallow the bitter pill and hope, somehow, the group learns something and returns\u2026 different. Motivated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough ending the season like this,\u201d said William Nylander<\/a>, who registered his sixth 30-goal campaign. \u201cI haven\u2019t been in this position. So, I mean, just go into the summer and be ready to have a big season next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Troy Stecher<\/a> is hopeful this is a one-off, an ugly blip caused by \u201ca magnitude\u201d of different reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something the organization will dissect amongst the players and the staff however they go about it,\u201d Stecher said. \u201cBut we\u2019re definitely aware as players what went wrong within the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll just probably keep that private for the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 At 35, John Tavares<\/a> is both the oldest Maple Leaf and the only one to play all 82 games this season, something he hasn\u2019t done since his inaugural campaign for Toronto back in 2018-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what you work all off-season for. That\u2019s what you wait every day for is the ability to wake up and get to go compete and play in this league,\u201d Tavares said.<\/p>\n

Since Matthews went down to injury, Tavares slid in seamlessly to the dual role of captain and No. 1 centre, racking up nine goals and 19 points in 17 games while facing reporters daily and saying the right things.<\/p>\n

A career-low minus-28 rating is tough to wear, but Tavares generating his eighth 30-goal and ninth 70-point season for $4.4 million makes him the best value on the entire roster.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Maple Leafs are light on unrestricted free agents.<\/p>\n

Calle J\u00e4rnkrok sat out Wednesday due to injury and has completed all four years of his $8.4-million contract in Toronto. Will another NHL team offer the 34-year-old a one-year deal for cheap? Or will J\u00e4rnkrok keep his career going back home in Sweden?<\/p>\n

Waiver-scoop Stecher, 32, said he has loved being a Maple Leaf and is hoping to re-sign in Toronto. But it\u2019s tough for him to speculate on his future with no GM in place yet.<\/p>\n

If Stecher does hit the open market on July 1, what\u2019s his priority?<\/p>\n

\u201cA job,\u201d he smiles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGuy like me, fighting his way off the league-minimum line,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019ve battled to stay in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Popular take: Nursing a bad knee and lobbed out in trade discussions, Matthew Knies<\/a> has endured a setback season.<\/p>\n

Counterpoint: Knies lost Mitch Marner and, later, Auston Matthews off his line yet still quietly produced more eight more points this season (66) than in his much-celebrated sophomore campaign (58).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a grind for him all year,\u201d Berube says.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rough ending for the Anthony Stolarz\u2013Joseph Woll<\/a> tandem that was so stellar last season.<\/p>\n

Stolarz suffered yet another lower-body, non-contact injury in his final start, one that will impact his off-season training.<\/p>\n

Since Jan. 15, Woll went a disturbing 4-12-5 with an .883 save percentage, albeit playing behind a defensively negligent team.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverworked,\u201d Berube believes. \u201cFaced a lot of rubber. Too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woll joined the team in mid-November and appeared in 39 games, five more than Stolarz but five below his own career high.<\/p>\n

Can Woll carry a true starter\u2019s pace?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a few things he probably has to think about and change a little bit to handle that type of load. It\u2019s a lot,\u201d Berube says. \u201cLook at the goalies in the league. There\u2019s only a handful of guys that play 50 or more games in a season.\u201d<\/p>\n

This season there were 19. Last season there were 22. Workhorses are on the decline.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Yes, Berube saw Rick Bowness\u2019s epic rant after the Columbus Blue Jackets phoned in Game 82.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not in Bones\u2019 head. But for me, it\u2019s like, losing has to hurt. It\u2019s got to be vocalized in the room by your players,\u201d Berube said. \u201cThings have to be said in a not-so-nice manner. And when that happens in a locker room enough times, things are bound to change. You got to challenge each other. He\u2019s not wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do the Maple Leafs have a similar issue with not hating to lose?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not getting into that stuff,\u201d Berube replied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANATA, Ont. \u2014 Sometimes the end arrives\u00a0with a bang. Screaming and fighting. Hung heads and blank stares. Spilled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[5,4,72,25,5157,73],"class_list":{"0":"post-553629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-ottawa","11":"tag-ottawa-senators","12":"tag-ottawasenators","13":"tag-senators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116412436850139468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}