While a top-6 winger is a priority, the Maple Leafs’ bottom-6 is now a strength

As soon as the reports of Mitch Marner heading to the Vegas Golden Knights became a reality, you could have guessed that the Toronto Maple Leafs were going to have a different look in 2025-26. For the last half-decade, their cap structure was the same every year. The Core Four of Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and John Tavares took up half of the cap, leaving them with roughly 50% of the cap to play with for the rest of the team. General manager Brad Treliving left his mark on the team last season after revamping their defensive corps in the offseason, and this year, for his third offseason at the helm (but this time without Brendan Shanahan), he’s completely revitalized the bottom six.

After re-upping Tavares and Matthew Knies on tidy deals worth $4.38 million and $7.75 million annually, respectively, Treliving got to work on the trade market. First, it was the acquisition of Utah Mammoth castaway Matias Maccelli, who was a legitimate contributor back when they were the Arizona Coyotes, but struggled in 2024-25 after seeing his ice time dip with a wave of young players suiting up. Then, it was the acquisition of Nicolas Roy, who the Maple Leafs were surprisingly able to acquire from the Golden Knights in a sign-and-trade for Marner. He’s expected to slide in as their third line centre, a role that the team hasn’t truly filled in the past few years. Most recently, they acquired forward Dakota Joshua from the Vancouver Canucks, similar to Maccelli, they took a gamble on a bounce-back season after a down year.

Between the combination of Tavares and Knies at about $12 million and the acquisitions of Maccelli, Roy, and Joshua (hell, you can include Michael Pezzetta in that group if you want, too), we are now seeing what direction the Leafs have chosen to go in with their new allocated cap space. There were enough top-six forwards on the market to replace with Marner, but considering the price tags some of these players came in at, they would have just running back the same structure with a different player had they gone for a Nik Ehlers or Brock Boeser type. Sure, those players didn’t come in at $10.6 million, but they would have commanded more had Toronto signed them, considering the Maple Leafs weren’t high on either player’s wish list. In the end, the Leafs have opted to get their bottom six set in stone, and between Joshua, Maccelli, and returning players such as Bobby McMann, they have enough players to use as stop gaps in the top six until they eventually make that upgrade.

The trade deadline market is nearly impossible to gauge year in and year out. The Leafs spent two first round picks and two top prospects combined to acquire forward Scott Laughton and defenceman Brandon Carlo, but in the same breath, a scoring winger who doesn’t bring much on the defensive or physical side of the puck could go for much cheaper. For example, Andrei Kuzmenko went from the Philadelphia Flyers to the Los Angeles Kings for a third-round pick, and he ended up putting up 17 points in 22 regular season games and six points in six playoff games for the Kings. The Maple Leafs would happily take those numbers for a middle-round draft pick, but other factors such as cap hit and term will come into play. All of this is to say it’s hard to gauge what the market will look like eight months from now.

Either way, the Leafs seem to be content with the roster they’re rolling out for the 2025-26 season, at least for right now. And, if nothing else, their bottom six no longer seems like it’s going to be a band of misfits. Roy is a solid third-line centre who put up north of 30 points despite being stuck behind Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl, and William Karlsson on the centre depth chart. Joshua has proven that he can flirt with 20 goals and jump into the top-six when needed, and Maccelli could even be one of those top-six forwards if he rebounds the way the Maple Leafs are expecting him to. It’s a stark difference from last season, when it never really felt like the Leafs had a consistent third or fourth line. The closest thing they had was the playoff-checking line of Steven Lorentz, Scott Laughton, and Calle Jarnkrok, and while that line was excellent on the shutdown side of things, they didn’t contribute any offence when it mattered. Aside from that, they tried to run a sheltered scoring line featuring players like Max Domi and Nick Robertson, which only ever worked when one of those players was, uh, scoring. Both players struggled with consistency last season, so it’s likely not a plan they want to run it back with.

Now you’ve got a pretty likely pair of Roy and Joshua on the third line, Maccelli, who can play anywhere in the top line, and then perhaps you can run with your original checking line of Laughton, Lorentz, and maybe somebody like Michael Pezzetta if you want a younger, more capable version of the enforcer type than Ryan Reaves. That leaves you with Domi, Jarnkrok, Robertson, and David Kampf to sprinkle in and around the lineup at your disposal.

It’s not the star-studded Core Four + secondary characters layout we’ve gotten used to over the years, but in the end, this is what a large chunk of fans wanted. If nothing else, the depth of the 2025-26 Maple Leafs will feature a vastly different look than it has during the entirety of the Core Four era.