The Toronto Maple Leafs aren’t exactly getting a lot of love heading into the 2026-27 season.
Bleacher Report’s latest NHL Power Rankings have the Maple Leafs sitting at No. 18, putting them behind teams such as the Ottawa Senators, Boston Bruins and Anaheim Ducks.
Sure, the ranking isn’t completely nuts.
Toronto missed the playoffs last season after a disastrous 32-36-14 campaign, and the organization made some significant changes over the summer. The Leafs landed prized prospect Gavin McKenna, their biggest addition in goal, Sergei Bobrovsky, however, is coming off the worst statistical season of his career.
That’s the rationale behind the ranking.
Bleacher Report points to the three-year, $21 million contract Toronto gave the 37-year-old Bobrovsky as the potential death blow to the team’s season. But it also makes “Bob” the ultimate wild card. If the veteran goalie can rediscover the form that helped Florida win two Stanley Cups, the Maple Leafs could yield a true renaissance. If not, things could get ugly again.
Fair enough.
But No. 18?
That’s where the ranking looks flat-out wrong.
The Maple Leafs have too much talent, too much motivation and too many potential difference-makers to be treated like a fringe playoff team.
Yes, there are legitimate questions surrounding this team.
But there are also plenty of reasons to believe Toronto can make those questions look foolish.
Toronto Is Too Good to Miss the Playoffs
The simplest argument against the ranking is that the Maple Leafs don’t need to be spectacular to make the playoffs.
They just need to be competent.
If Toronto gets even average goaltending, this should be a playoff team.
That’s not asking Bobrovsky to become the goalie who dominated the 2024 and 2025 playoffs. It’s not asking him to steal games every night. The Maple Leafs simply need stability in the crease.
Give this team that, and the situation looks considerably different.
Toronto still has Auston Matthews. It still has William Nylander. It still has a collection of talented forwards that can create offense in bunches.
The offseason was also about more than simply adding names. The Maple Leafs needed to address the problems that contributed to last season’s collapse, and they now have an opportunity to see whether the new additions under first-year head coach Jim Hiller can work.
That’s why ranking the Maple Leafs so low feels overly bearish.
The Atlantic Division won’t be easy. Boston, Florida, Tampa Bay, Montreal and Buffalo are all legit playoff teams.
But Toronto doesn’t have to win the division.
It just needs to stay alive in the race.
And if Bobrovsky gives the Maple Leafs league-average goaltending while the rest of the roster performs somewhere close to expectations, there’s little reason to believe they won’t be in the playoff picture come next spring.
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Maple Leafs Could Be a Nightmare Come April
Making the playoffs is one thing. That’s just an intermediate goal. What happens afterward is where this Maple Leafs team could really surprise people.
The key is getting everyone to perform.
Toronto doesn’t need Matthews to carry the entire offense. It doesn’t need Nylander to produce at an unsustainable pace. It doesn’t need Bobrovsky to step into a time machine and rejuvenate by a decade.
Most notably, it needs the entire roster to function as a team.
That’s where the Maple Leafs could become significantly more dangerous than their ridiculous ranking suggests.
A healthy, motivated Matthews gives Toronto a superstar capable of changing a playoff series by himself. Nylander remains a dynamic offensive weapon. And if the supporting cast contributes consistently, the Leafs suddenly have enough depth to make life extremely difficult for whoever they face.
There is also something to be said for coming into the postseason with relatively modest expectations.
Nobody is handing Toronto the Stanley Cup. Nobody is putting the Maple Leafs among the handful of overwhelming favorites. That means the pressure is different.
If everything clicks, Toronto could enter April as the team nobody particularly wants to see.
But if Bobrovsky holds up, the offense clicks and the new-look roster actually comes together, the Maple Leafs could make Bleacher Report’s preseason assessment look awfully silly.
And that would be a much more entertaining outcome.
Maple Leafs Could Make Critics Look Very Wrong This Season