These Leafs are more fun. They're still a work in progress, and anyone who thinks Thursday night proved otherwise wasn't watching the final 30 seconds.
The good part is real. Five different Leafs scored in the 5-4 win over the Rangers: Easton Cowan, Teddy Blueger, Kirill Marchenko, Brandon Duhaime, and Troy Stecher, who buried the winner with 26.3 seconds left off a feed from Morgan Rielly. Duhaime added a goal and two assists, and Gavin McKenna, the No. 1 overall pick, picked up a point. The scoring came from all over the lineup, which is exactly what this fan base has wanted after years of top-heavy playoff flameouts.
This was by design, too. This is a genuinely rebuilt forward group. Marchenko came in a September trade that cost them Matthew Knies. Blueger and Duhaime were summer free-agent signings, Duhaime on a three-year deal. Cowan, drafted back in 2023, finally has an NHL runway. Add Sergei Bobrovsky, Colton Sissons, Jack Roslovic, and McKenna and the roster barely resembles last year's. The front office went out and bought more finishers. On that front, mission accomplished.
RatingNow the part that should keep the champagne corked. Toronto won this game 5-4 against a Rangers team playing without its starting goalie, Igor Shesterkin, who sat with a lower-body injury. Backup Dylan Garand faced a barrage, stopped most of it, and still had Toronto needing a last-minute goal with the extra attacker on to escape. At the other end, Bobrovsky let in four on 25 shots. That's an .840 save percentage. You don't outshoot a team, lean on your new depth, and still have to sweat out a one-goal win against a backup goalie unless something at the back end is still broken.
The counter is that winning is winning, the room looks loose, and a team that can win ugly in October has figured something out. That's true as far as it goes. Three straight wins is three straight wins. But all three came the same high-event, trading-chances way, and scoring one more than the other guy is exactly the formula that stopped working for this organization every spring. More firepower doesn't fix a leaky defense. It just hides it on the nights the pucks go in.
The offseason made this team deeper and a lot more fun to watch, but the goaltending and defense that haunted last year's group are still here, just buried under louder scoring. Call these Leafs fun. They're still a work in progress, and one frantic 5-4 against a backup goalie doesn't change that.
