The Toronto Maple Leafs were in a bit of a weird spot following the 2024-25 NHL Trade Deadline. There was a world of pressure on them to add a middle-six centre and, if possible, a defenceman. And they walked out of the deadline with both. Forward Scott Laughton was acquired from the Philadelphia Flyers for a first-round pick and prospect Nikita Grebenkin, and defenceman Brandon Carlo was acquired for the same package except prospect Fraser Minten instead of Grebenkin.

On one hand, the Leafs were adding a ‘glue’ guy who could sniff 20 goals and provide a strong two-way presence, and a right-handed defenceman who could make a clean breakout pass and give Morgan Rielly a partner he could trust without wrecking the shutdown pair of Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev. On the other hand, the deadline left the Leafs’ prospect pool about as bare as one can get, meaning even more pressure than usual to make a substantial run. The Leafs made it to the second round and pushed the eventual Cup-winning Florida Panthers to Game 7, but for year 9 of the Auston Matthews era, it wasn’t enough to keep the fans and media from playing the revisionist history game.

The bright side regardless of the outcome of the 2025 playoffs is that Laughton had an extra year left on his deal, and thus, an extra year to make things right. His two goals to close out the 2024-25 season did not reflect the player the Leafs hoped they were getting when they swung the deal, and although the sample size from 2025-26 is small, we’re finally starting to see the player the Leafs paid that price for.

Getting to full health has been a challenge for Laughton this year, and not to his fault at all. He blocked a shot in the team’s final preseason game of the year which left him injured for the first month of the season, then in his second game back from that injury, he took a high hit from Boston Bruins defenceman Nikita Zadorov which sidelined him again. Since returning from that injury, Laughton has three goals in eight games, with all three coming in the team’s past three games. The first one was a crucial goal against the Florida Panthers to give the Leafs some insurance and eventually lead them to a win.

The following game, Laughton scored the second goal of the game against the Carolina Hurricanes, which would end up being the game-winner. He got some puck luck with it, but it doesn’t happen without him crashing the net.

Then, on Saturday against the Montreal Canadiens, Laughton scored an old-fashioned slap shot goal to tie the game for the Maple Leafs, on a shorthanded breakaway to boot.

What’s encouraging about Laughton’s goals here isn’t just the fact that he’s finding the scoresheet, it’s the way he’s scoring them and the emotion he’s showing afterward. Two goals came as a result of crashing the net, and without mincing words, you have to have a serious level of confidence to go for a slap shot on a breakaway. A lack of confidence is precisely why Laughton didn’t look like he fit with this roster in the first few weeks he was a Leaf, but now that he’s gotten a full training camp under his belt and has skated with linemates he’s familiar with dating back to his arrival, he’s finally looking like somebody who is feeling comfortable in his skin and ready to do whatever it takes to help his team win.

Laughton spoke about his goal following the shootout loss to the Canadiens and took accountability for a mistake he made earlier in the game.

“Yeah, a little fired up,” Laughton said. “I’ve done it before [taking a slap shot on a breakaway] a couple of times, just thought that was the play. I wasn’t too happy when they scored on their power play, I let a seam pass go through and they found the next seam, so, I tried to get one back there, but we couldn’t find a way to get the extra.”

It’s not just the offensive side of the puck, either. Laughton has the second-highest average penalty kill time on ice per game at 2:08, sitting behind only Calle Jarnkrok, who has been a healthy scratch more often than not recently. His return has helped the Leafs’ penalty kill limit the amount of power play goals against to only two in the past 21 opportunities, which dates back to his return on November 20. The penalty kill as a whole has jumped up to 12th in the league with a success rate of 81.5%, and while part of that is due to the stellar goaltending they’ve gotten, it’s no coincidence that they caught fire once Laughton started logging over two minutes a game shorthanded.

It’s not just on the ice where an impact has been made either. Laughton has immediately made waves in the community for the Maple Leafs, specifically his work with the team on Pride night in celebration of making hockey a safer and more accessible space for hockey fans who identify as LGBTQ+. He’s been a longstanding ambassador for the community along with Morgan Rielly and outside of his activism, you can see that he makes friends wherever he goes.

“As a team, as hockey players, we’re still people, too,” Rielly said of Laughton. “There are things that are important to us, and as teammates, it’s important that you support one another. There are things that are important to us that we want to support and I think that’s great. There’s an opportunity when you play for the Toronto Maple Leafs, to have even a small impact on even one or two people. I think it’s important to guys to be vocal about what they support, what’s important to them and Scott’s a great example of that.”

Laughton will be an unrestricted free agent following the 2025-26 season, and if he continues to play the way he is, you can imagine the Leafs will want to get an extension done. Being a lifelong Leafs fan and hailing from Toronto, he’s been a success story in the locker room and the community, and now the results on the ice are starting to flower as well.