There are 29 games remaining for the Toronto Maple Leafs, but for all intents and purposes, the season is over. Toronto entered a pivotal five-game home stand firmly in the mix for a playoff spot, while being tested by some of the NHL’s elite. It was a tremendous opportunity to prove that they were turning the corner, acclimated to a more diverse offence, accelerated by Marc Savard’s pre-Christmas firing. And instead, apathy ruled the day, in place of righteous anger from all parties. Toronto lost all five games during the home stand, culminating in an embarrassing 7-4 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday evening.

It’s often a fallacious assumption to state that professional athletes lose due to a lack of effort. Every single player in the NHL is there due to a combination of astounding talent, combined with real work ethic. So perhaps it’s not worth entertaining this point, but the Maple Leafs seemed to be apathetic throughout the five-game home stand, when they should’ve been guided by anger. Ahead of Thursday’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights, the most emotionally charged contest of the 2025-26 NHL calendar, the party line was that it was just another game. Mitch Marner didn’t even have to be anywhere near his best, as his Golden Knights comrades picked up along the way for a 6-3 victory that the sixth-leading scorer in Maple Leafs history happily delighted in, to the disgust of the Toronto market.

Anger should’ve ruled the day against the league-leading Colorado Avalanche, but instead, Brock Nelson walked the team off the ice, recording a hat-trick, as the Maple Leafs effectively conceded defeat against the NHL’s true juggernaut. William Nylander giving the middle finger to TSN’s broadcast camera, a non-story in and of itself, was more emphatic than the apathy displayed by the healthy players.

“Until we decide to do things right and keep the puck out of our net, and that is the goalies included, this is what you’re going to get. We scored enough goals on this home stand to win games,” Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube assessed, following Tuesday’s loss. “But we didn’t keep the puck out of our net. We score goals. Until we want to keep the puck out of our net, this is what we’re going to get.”

It’s an interesting assessment from Berube, one that can be read as damning. Toronto started the year as the NHL’s worst defensive team, defined by horrific rush defence and gap control, along with poor net-front defending, countered by above-average goaltending. There were improvements, Oliver Ekman-Larsson is having a quietly strong year, while Troy Stecher was a God-send for the defence corps, before a seemingly unsustainable hot streak crashed back down to earth during the past two weeks. Morgan Rielly’s effort can rarely be questioned as a consummate pro but it’s becoming impossible to ignore that he’s been on the ice for a league-worst 60 goals at 5-on-5.

“To come home and have a chance to try to gain some ground, have a home stand, and then to not make a count, it is not okay,” Rielly said following Tuesday’s game. “In terms of what went wrong, we will have to look at that. What I said before about just being desperate and that idea of playoff hockey and that idea of where we are in the standings and how we need to play to move up and to make a push. Obviously, we didn’t have it. This is new for me here, the situation that we’re in. It’s difficult to understand.”

It’s not like the forwards should be absolved from blame. Auston Matthews is skating with real explosion through the month of January, leading the NHL with nine goals at 5-on-5, but that may be the lone positive through this hellacious month. Matthews has often seemed indifferent during his media availabilities, or perhaps the message has grown repetitive from Toronto’s captain, as it’s hard to rely upon lessons learned during the downswing of a promising decade evaporating into thin air. Scott Laughton is the emotional leader of the team, but it’s not a good sign when your fourth-line centre is one of the few players that show demonstrable anger with how the season has gone.

We’re not asking the Leafs to be performative, but we are asking them to play up to the sum of their talented parts, a goal that hasn’t been met by any reasonable standard. Berube survived the holiday roster freeze, earning a second vote of confidence from general manager Brad Treliving. For all intents and purposes, the season is over, as apathy replaced anger during a season-defining home stretch.