The Toronto Maple Leafs’ streak of nine consecutive playoff appearances is in jeopardy.
The Maple Leafs were in tough to make the postseason heading into the Olympic break in early February and the team has fallen further out of the playoff picture since returning.
Toronto has lost five straight games coming out of the break, the latest a 4-3 shootout loss to the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night.
With Friday’s 3 p.m. ET trade deadline just over a day away, the Maple Leafs remain optimistic despite sitting seventh in the Eastern Conference wild-card race.
“We have the mentality that anything can happen right now and we can still jump back into it,” said Maple Leafs winger Matthew Knies after the game. “That should be our focus. We won’t hang our heads low.”
Toronto sat forwards Scott Laughton and Bobby McMann, as well as defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, for roster management purposes on Wednesday. Laughton and McMann are pending unrestricted free agents while Ekman-Larsson has two years remaining after this season with a cap hit of $3.5 million.
“It’s tough,” Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube said. “We want to win games and when you come to the rink and there’s three important players that aren’t in the lineup, it’s going to impact the guys, but I thought the guys came out and were ready to play.”
TSN’s Trade Bait list features six Maple Leafs, including the aforementioned trio as well as forward Nicolas Roy and defencemen Simon Benoit and Brandon Carlo.
The last time the franchise failed to reach the playoffs was in 2015-16, when Toronto finished last and drafted Auston Matthews first overall.
Matthews, who had one goal in 24:57 of ice time against the Devils, declined on Wednesday to discuss what has gone wrong for the team this season.
“You can look at a lot of different factors,” Matthews told The Canadian Press. “I’m not going to sit here and speculate on what went wrong.”
