Is it finally their year?

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Every September, for almost two decades, I tell myself that this will be the year the Leafs go all the way. At this point, I’ve stopped trusting myself, but even then I still hopelessly believe. September 2026 is here, a few weeks out from the NHL season beginning, and it is no different.

Changes during the off season

To state the obvious, last season was horrendous. The Leafs didn’t just miss the playoffs for the first time since 2016; they finished dead last in their division with a lacklustre record of 32-36-14. General Manager (GM) Brad Treliving was fired soon after in March, and Head Coach Craig Berube followed in May. The historic franchise hasn’t lifted a Stanley Cup, the top prize in the NHL, since 1967, and a collapse like the one we have seen over the last couple seasons usually indicates a long-winded “trust the process” rebuild.

Despite the shipwreck of a season, the hockey gods looked down on Toronto and decided to send them a gift. The Leafs won the draft lottery with the fifth-best odds, winning a coin flip that had absolutely no business landing their way. You can call it fate, a guardian angel, or the universe feeling guilty for years of Leafs misery, but whatever it was, it changed the entire mood around the city overnight.

New GM John Chayka began his tenure on May 3rd and tore the roster down to the studs. Jim Hiller and Daniel Alfredsson joined the coaching staff, with former Leafs legend Mats Sundin joining the team in a senior advisory role. Fan favourites and key roster pieces, including Joseph Woll, were shipped off. In their place came two-time Stanley Cup champion Sergei Bobrovsky from the Florida Panthers, D-man Darren Raddysh from the Tampa Bay Lightning, and several others. Not to mention other player additions made during free agency.

Before we continue, it might be worth setting the scene as to what the world was like 59 years ago, the last time the Leafs got their hands on what many fans argue is the hardest trophy to win in all of sports.

The last time we had the cup

In 1967, the place you are reading this from didn’t exist. UTM was not a campus, nor a singular building… nothing. That September, after the Leafs beat their arch-rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, for the Cup, UofT opened a small, single building on a stretch of farmland along the Credit River and named it Erindale College. It had 155 students and 28 faculty members with more deer and rabbits wandering the property than people.

It gets stranger. The City of Mississauga was still named “Toronto Township,” a patch of farms and villages like Cooksville, Clarkson, and Streetsville. The name “Mississauga” was only chosen in 1968 after a public vote. The GO transit system launched that same spring, too, as a three-year experiment nobody thought would survive. Downtown Toronto was no different. The CN Tower was still a decade away, no SkyDome (Rogers Centre), and no Scotiabank Arena.

Mckenna brings hope to a tough division

Despite the long, drawn-out wait and terrible 2025-2026 season, the entire fanbase has had their hopes resurrected by an 18-year-old. Justin Bieber walked up on stage this past June at the draft in Buffalo and selected a Whitehorse, Yukon native to the Maple Leafs. Gavin McKenna became the third player to be selected first overall in franchise history, following Wendel Clark and Auston Matthews. He posted video-game-like numbers before being drafted, recording 180 points across the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) and NCAA National Collegiate Athletic Association competitions last season.

However, the consensus around the league and on social media is that McKenna, as good a player as he will become, is not fully ready for what’s to follow. It seems that a 50-point rookie season will be considered a genuine success for him. For an undersized 5-foot-11 winger, the jump to the NHL will be a major adjustment as he develops his defensive game and adapts to professional hockey. None of that changes the fact that he was the right choice at No. 1 overall. McKenna is not an immediate solution to the Mitch Marner-sized hole in the lineup, and expecting him to be one would be unfair.

Another very important thing to keep in mind is the Atlantic Division itself, which looks like the most competitive in the league. Seven of the eight teams look to be legitimate playoff contenders. Buffalo and Montreal, two proven teams; Tampa Bay and Florida, both with big additions; and Ottawa and Boston, dangerous as always. Detroit may be a step behind, but they cannot be counted out.

With only three guaranteed divisional playoff spots and two wild cards available in the Eastern Conference, seven teams are fighting for five spots. All this comes before the Leafs’ main issue. Winning four rounds of playoff hockey against strong teams, all vying for the same goal. Toronto will need to climb a huge mountain; imagine walking up and down the RAWC steps 10 times after hitting legs in the gym for two hours.

Time to hit the ice

Maybe what the Leafs are lacking is some spirit from UTM students. There isn’t a huge hockey culture at the school right now, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t die hard fans around campus.

The UTM Eagles have both a Men’s and Women’s ice hockey team. If you’re a fan or player, consider getting involved. If playing isn’t your thing, nothing is stopping a group of students from starting a club, a fantasy league, within your own program, residence building or the entire campus to watch hockey games and cheer on the Buds. Campus hockey culture isn’t going to build itself—just like Chayka had to step in and revitalize the roster, someone needs to take that first step and send the invite.

So here it is. The road to success runs through the hardest division in a league that shows absolutely no mercy. Despite that, the Leafs will be much better than they were last year. The plan is real, and the passion is there. For six decades, every season, with more added pressure, we still keep Be-Leaf-ing. So, light the candles, knock on wood, pray to whatever you believe in, because for the first time in a while, a drastic change in the off-season has actually given us a reason to think that the parade might be closer than we think.

Strap in for another year. Go Leafs, Go!

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