One question facing each member of Maple Leafs’ core heading into 2025-26

Only a few weeks remain before the Toronto Maple Leafs officially begin their 2025-26 campaign. The off-season tumult will be left behind, the hypotheticals will turn tangible, and the blue-and-white will begin navigating the question of what life after Mitch Marner looks like.

Things will no doubt feel different for the club this time around. The Maple Leafs have tinkered with shifting their identity over the past couple seasons, shaking up their front office, then bringing in Craig Berube to redefine the club’s style of play. Now, with one of the team’s offensive stalwarts moved on, we’ll see Toronto truly move into a new chapter.

But for all the clamouring among the Leafs faithful for change, the new course Brad Treliving and Co. have charted is still flush with question marks. Marner is out — set to ply his trade in Vegas Golden Knights colours after a June sign-and-trade — and in his place, the Maple Leafs have used the cap flexibility gained to bring in Matias Maccelli, Dakota Joshua, and Nicolas Roy. 

The big-picture, 10,000-foot question facing Toronto this season will be a simple one: Are they better with a different, more balanced identity? That is, are they better without Marner? Or will their desire to be less top-heavy lead to a step backwards? We’ll have an entire campaign to find out.

Regardless of how the new additions fare, though, one thing is clear — the pressure on Toronto’s remaining core now ramps up significantly. Treliving’s squad was already one that needed elite performances from its elite players to find success — now the group is down one of those top-end pieces, while the rest of the roster arguably doesn’t look greatly improved.

But it’s not as clear this year who exactly comprises that core. You could argue for throwing Chris Tanev or Anthony Stolarz in there, or debate where Morgan Rielly fits into the plans at this point. That said, the club’s success in 2025-26 will seem to depend on how the campaign goes for a few Leafs in particular. Here’s a look at one key question facing each member of that group heading into the new season.

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Auston Matthews: How will past injury issues, and Marner’s absence, impact his bounce-back campaign?

The Maple Leafs have been No. 34’s team for years now. Talented as some of the names around him may be, the blue-and-white will go as Auston Matthews goes. That’s doubly true now, with Marner — who led the club in scoring in five of the past nine seasons, including last season — now out of the picture.

But it was a tumultuous 2024-25 season for the captain. Injuries derailed Matthews’ year from the jump, the American pivot suffering an upper-body injury during training camp that wound up keeping him out of the lineup for multiple stretches — and prompted a trip to Germany in pursuit of a solution. In the end, Matthews admitted it was a difficult season physically, saying his injury issues “impacted a lot of different things.”

The expectation is that No. 34 will be back to full strength when training camp rolls around later this month, and looking to recover his Hart Trophy form. Keeping him healthy will be crucial for the Maple Leafs. Health aside, though, perhaps the bigger question is how Matthews will be affected by Marner’s departure. The Arizona product has spent the majority of the past half-decade with No. 16 on his wing, the latter’s exceptional abilities as a facilitator playing no small role in Matthews racking up lofty totals. 

Now, coming off an injury-plagued campaign that saw him collect the fewest goals of his big-league career, he’ll have to navigate the inexact science of finding chemistry with a new winger as he looks to author a redemption effort.

William Nylander: Can he grow into a bigger role and fill the void left by No. 16?

It will be a pivotal season for William Nylander, too. To this point, the talented Swede has been something of a luxury for the Maple Leafs — a dynamic, increasingly productive weapon, relied upon often but not leaned on quite as much as his fellow core forwards. That shifted last season under Berube, with Nylander averaging the most even-strength ice-time on the squad for the first time in his career. 

And the production continued to climb, No. 88 hitting an offensive career-high for the fourth straight season, this time by potting 45 goals. That continued progress is a good sign for the Maple Leafs, because Nylander’s role for this group now moves into new territory. Marner is out, Tavares will be 35 years old, and Matthews is coming off a season hounded by injuries — in a sense, Nylander enters the new season as Toronto’s most reliable bet for high-end offence. They’ll need him at his best again, as much of Toronto’s success still relies on being an above-average offensive handful. 

Watching this club falter in the playoffs time and time again, though, there could be something valuable found in Nylander taking on a bigger role. Much of Toronto’s playoff disappointment has come on the heels of nervy, tense performances — but No. 88 has often seemed the Maple Leaf most built for the moment, the only one willing to simply plow ahead. That much was clear last post-season, as he paced the team through two rounds. Big-picture, he’s been Toronto’s most productive playoff contributor over the past half-decade, leading the team in goals and points, overall and at even-strength. Now we’ll see what these Maple Leafs look like when they lean a little more into No. 88’s identity and less into No. 16’s.

John Tavares: At 35 years old, can he maintain the level he showed last season?

Just a couple years ago, John Tavares’s chapter in Toronto seemed to be coming to a close. Age was catching up with the former Hart Trophy nominee; his production was dipping. Then came a resurgent 2024-25 — Tavares finished a hair shy of 40 goals and 75 points, proved he’s still an essential cog in this Maple Leafs machine, and filled in dutifully when the club’s No. 1 centreman was sidelined with mysterious injuries. But now comes a unique challenge for the club’s elder statesman.

First, there’s the question of whether he can do it again. Tavares has been a fairly consistent, high-end scorer for Toronto since joining the club seven seasons ago, and we’ve seen no shortage of quality offensive campaigns from veterans in the 30-plus club over the past few years, so the expectation isn’t that Tavares’s production might fall off a cliff. Still, there’s no denying he had plenty of extra motivation last season — a massive, expiring contract, and a fair few questions about what a follow-up deal would look like; the first season played after having the captaincy taken from him and bestowed on Matthews; disappointment at being left off Team Canada’s roster for what wound up a surprisingly electric 4 Nations Face-Off.

Who knows whether any of that truly fuelled Tavares’s sterling season. Either way, the situation is surely different this time around. Inked to a new four-year deal, settled into a different role, back in the picture for Team Canada’s Olympic orientation camp, and with far fewer questions about whether these Maple Leafs need him, it should be a more comfortable 2025-26 for the former captain. But a step backwards would be costly for Toronto, because amid all the roster reshuffling that’s gone on, No. 91 has been thrust back into the spotlight — as with the two names above, Marner’s departure makes their success next season all the more necessary. 

Matthew Knies: With a new contract under his belt, can he take the next step and build on his breakout year?

Despite the numbers here, don’t get it twisted — the Core Four is no more. It’s the Matthews-Nylander show from here on out, with Tavares sure to be leaned on heavily, too. The Maple Leafs’ core figures to be less defined in 2025-26 than it has been for years — that’s perhaps by design, the Toronto brass looking to move away from the ‘Team A, Team B’ dynamic that’s hindered their efforts in recent years. But beyond the three names above, there is one other who undeniably enters 2025-26 as a core piece for the blue-and-white: young Matthew Knies.

It’s been a steady progression for the talented 22-year-old. Thrown right into the playoff fire in Year 1, Knies eased into a top-six role in Year 2 before truly finding his footing last season. Finishing the regular season a goal shy of 30 and a couple points shy of 60, then making his six-foot-three, 227-pound presence known in the post-season, the young winger made clear just how effective a piece he can be for these Maple Leafs. Beyond continuing to push up his own ceiling, it’s simply the fact that he brings something no other member of Toronto’s top six brings — which is why he enters the new season with a fresh six-year, $46.5 million deal to his name.

That said, to this point, there’s been little pressure on Knies to lead this team. Behind the high-flying Matthews-Marner duo, behind Nylander’s blockbuster nights, and Tavares’s dutiful consistency, Knies has had the space to find where he fits in, to get acclimated, to do his thing. This year, there will be a shift. He enters the new campaign not only as one of the Maple Leafs’ most important offensive contributors, but as a key bit of familiarity for linemate Matthews as the latter tries to recover his form without No. 16. 

This time, progress from Knies is a must, not a bonus. The chairs have been shuffled, the roles realigned. For the Maple Leafs to get where they want to go in 2026, another step from No. 23 will be crucial. 

Editor