Sometimes you come back from a long break, and it’s clear in how you play. That’s been the Toronto Maple Leafs coming out of the Olympic break. Two games, two losses, and both showed the same issue. The team’s slow starts bury them before they even find their legs. Against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday, they went down 3-0 early. Against the Florida Panthers on Thursday, it was the same story.
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The Panthers came out flying, and the Maple Leafs just couldn’t match the pace. Before Toronto knew what hit them, it was 3-0, and Panthers fans at Amerant Bank Arena knew the game was theirs. A 5-1 final wasn’t flattering, but it was probably fair. Still, even in a game like that, a few Maple Leafs managed to stand out.
Item One: John Tavares Shows He Still Has Touch Around the Net
If anyone deserved a goal, it was John Tavares. He’s had one of the strangest seasons of his career: steady underlying numbers, good chances, and long stretches where the puck just refuses to cooperate.
Early in the third, he finally broke Sergei Bobrovsky’s shutout bid with a power-play goal that wasn’t pretty, but it counted. A pass attempt down low deflected off Gustav Forsling’s skate and slid through Bobrovsky’s pads. That’s how it goes sometimes — you grind, you get to the spots, and eventually something drops.
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Tavares also tied Wendel Clark for fifth-most power-play goals in franchise history. That’s a nice milestone, even on a tough night. He wasn’t rewarded on the scoresheet for much else, but he was one of the few who kept trying to drag the team back into it.
Item Two: Auston Matthews Quietly Extends a Streak
Some nights, the Maple Leafs can’t generate much at all. Yet Auston Matthews still finds a way to show up on the scoresheet. His assist streak is now at five games, tying the longest run of his career. It wasn’t a flashy night for him. The Panthers crowded every lane, won most of the puck battles, and shut down the middle of the ice. Even so, Matthews managed to slip Tavares a perfect touch pass that led to his goal. When the team sputters, steady production like his matters.
What stands out is how he’s doing it. Matthews hasn’t scored in six games and has only one goal in his last ten, but he’s still driving plays and finding ways to contribute. That’s the kind of all-situations value contenders need from their stars down the stretch. Sadly, for his team, he’s not scoring a ton of goals, but he is helping to keep the offence alive when everything else feels clogged.
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And before the game, he took part in a pregame ceremony honouring Olympic medalists. It was a small moment, but a good reminder that even on a night when he didn’t dominate, Matthews still sits at the centre of the sport’s biggest stages.
Item Three: Luke Haymes Delivers First AHL Hat Trick in Breakout Stretch
It’s been a strong rookie season for the American Hockey League (AHL) Toronto Marlies 22-year-old forward Luke Haymes, but Wednesday night felt like a real arrival moment. Haymes scored three goals in a 4–1 win over the Laval Rocket, a game that capped off an impressive stretch where he’s starting to look more and more like a legitimate prospect for the Maple Leafs organization.
Seven of his 12 goals this season have come in the last eight games, which tells you a lot about both his growing confidence and the coaching staff trusting him with more opportunities. He’s up to 22 points in 48 games, firing 84 shots and finding ways to impact play even when he’s not scoring. For an undrafted player in his first full AHL campaign (he was signed last March by the Maple Leafs after three years at Dartmouth College), that’s exactly the kind of trajectory teams hope for when they sign someone to an entry-level deal.
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Haymes doesn’t have the pedigree of a top pick, but he’s showing something just as important: steady improvement, a nose for the puck, and the ability to rise when the schedule tightens. Nights like this don’t guarantee anything, but they do suggest he’s carving out a real place in the system. That’s a win for everyone involved. Could he be another Bobby McMann in the making? He has the same kind of resume, but he’s a bit smaller at 6-foot-1 and 202 pounds.
What’s Next for the Maple Leafs?
The good news? The problems are fixable. The bad news? They have to fix them fast. Slow starts have burned them in back-to-back games, and when you’re fighting for every point in the standings, you can’t spot early leads to teams like the Lightning and Panthers that feast on mistakes.
Head coach Craig Berube said the team didn’t “weather the storm” well enough in the first, and he was right. The Maple Leafs looked better in the second and third, but chasing the game gets old fast. At some point, they need to dictate the play rather than react to it. One gets the feeling that these two games have removed the question mark hovering over the season and replaced it with an exclamation point.
