It’s been a rollercoaster start to 2025 for the Toronto Maple Leafs, posting alternating winning and losing streaks through the month of January.

After Wednesday’s defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Wild, the Leafs have now lost three in a row, with only one goal in each of those contests. Toronto currently sits second in the Atlantic Division, one point behind the Florida Panthers with a game in hand.

While it’s not a dire situation, many fans seem concerned about the direction the team is headed.

Having passed the halfway point of the season, it’s a good time to take a look back at some recent successful teams who endured difficult stretches — and how they overcame it.

Speaking of those pesky Panthers, they faced a similar skid one year ago en route to their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

Last January, Florida dropped four games in a row to the New Jersey Devils, Anaheim Ducks, Detroit Red Wings, and the Wild, all teams in the bottom half of the league.

Those games came without Panthers forward Nick Cousins, and the latter two without captain Aleksander Barkov after he left the Ducks game late in the third period.

The key for the Panthers at the time was to recognize that in a long season, there is bound to be some ups and downs. Avoid anxieties about the scoreboard and look at what parts of the game are working and which aren’t.

Head coach Paul Maurice highlighted at the time that he wasn’t worried in the grand-scheme of their season, knowing that this would push the team to be better:

“It’s a good place to be in this environment. That adversity drives you, it defines you, shapes you, so we are not trying to get out of it.”

And learn from it they did, as they were forced to turn around a three-game losing streak in the Stanley Cup Final later that season to win their first championship.

Where better to look for a lesson on how to turn a season around than last year’s Edmonton Oilers?

Through the first 18 games last year, the Oilers went an abysmal 5-12-1.

And how did they respond? With eight-game and 16-game winning streaks, the latter of which tied for the second-longest win streak in NHL history.

Granted, the Oilers got a boon from new head coach Kris Knoblauch taking over, but that was a much more dire situation. The key here was a mentality shift their new leader was able to instill, even with the same players on the ice.

It wasn’t long ago that Oilers were in the bottom of the league and they certainly learned their lesson in facing adversity. It paid off when the right leadership was able to bring it out of them.

For the Leafs, it’s up to Craig Berube to find a way to new way to inspire this team to push them to the best of their abilities, just as he did through the end of 2024.

How about another Stanley Cup champ who endured a tough January on their way to glory?

Two years ago, the Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights dropped seven of eight games in an eye-opening winter stretch. Across those seven losses, they averaged just over a goal per game.

For the Knights, these losses came amidst a slew of injuries, something the Leafs are all too familiar with, as they rely on Joseph Woll to keep them afloat amidst Anthony Stolarz’s absence.

Things turned around for the Golden Knights when their depth forwards stepped up and filled in the gaps left by the absences at the top of their team.

Earlier this season without Auston Matthews, that’s exactly what the Leafs did as well. Now with Matthews back in the lineup, they must find a way to tap into that mentality again.

As they endure goal-scoring woes, which one of their star forwards will be the one to step up and take charge, commanding the Leafs back to the scoreboard and the win column?

While it’s certain there’s a lot for the Leafs to work on in the coming weeks, it’s important to remember not to panic. Every season has ups and downs and ultimately, if they can take the right lessons from these losses, they’ll come out a better team from it.