A Stern, Yet Heartfelt Letter to Maple Leafs Fans

To any fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, I have this to say: I hope it was worth it.

I tried to tell you. I begged the Leafs not to do this. But on June 30, 2025, they did it. They actually traded Mitch Marner. Second-in-command on the Leafs for years, and they dealt him away. Even worse, they traded him for Nicolas Roy. Oh boy. I've said this before in past Vocal stories. I'm an Avalanche fan, not a Maple Leafs fan. However, I consider myself a sympathizer of the Maple Leafs because the team has been ridiculed for their long Stanley Cup drought, mainly by fans of teams who never won one. Those same fans call the Maple Leafs "choke artists," forgetting the fact that teams like the Oilers blow it much worse.

But even with all of that, I have to finally face the facts. This team will not learn. Once again, yet again, the fans scapegoat a very good player, and instead of defending him, the team listens and deals him away. Because that worked out soooooo well for you in the past, right?

Larry Murphy

Remember Larry Murphy? Toronto definitely does. Drafted by the Kings in 1980, Murphy accomplished quite a bit, having already won a pair of Stanley Cups with the Penguins in 1991 and 1992. He ended up with Toronto in 1995-96, racking up 61 points in full season's worth of games. Murphy's a defenseman, so that's pretty damn good. But don't tell Leafs fans that. They put a whole new meaning to the term, "Murphy's Law," blaming him for their lack of success despite the fact that it dated back damn near three decades. They cried, they blamed, they moaned, and on March 18, 1997, the Leafs dealt Murphy to Detroit.

The result: Murphy won back-to-back Cups with the Wings, and played a key role in those Cups. 11 points in 20 playoff games in 1997, and 15 points in 22 playoff games in 1998. Five goals in the two seasons combined, two of them shorties that he scored in the 1998 run. But yeah, Murphy was the problem.

It doesn't end there.

Phil Kessel

Phil Kessel, the Maple Leafs' American Dream. Kessel was drafted by the Bruins, who dealt him to their division foes for a few draft picks (one of whom became Tyler Seguin, another of whom became Dougie Hamilton). Kessel's longest tenure was with Toronto, and at the time he was traded to the Maple Leafs, the team was in a playoff drought. That drought ended in the shortened 2012-13 season, and Kessel played a big role in that resurgence. And how did the Maple Leafs fans repay Kessel? They shamed him for liking hot dogs, and used that to say he sucks. Seriously?

Toronto listened to their ungrateful fans and traded Kessel to the Penguins. Guess what happened? Yep, back-to-back Cups, and Kessel was a big contributor. Larry Murphy 2.0. In fact, an argument was made for Kessel to win the Conn Smythe in one of those years. Oh, and Kessel ended up with a third Cup as a member of the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2022-23 season. Hot dogs definitely taste better eaten out of the Stanley Cup. Kessel actually said those words after winning.

You would think it would end there. Nope.

Nazem Kadri

This still baffles me. I loved Nazem Kadri with the Maple Leafs. He was part of that group that included Kessel and James Van Riemsdyk, and he continued being a key player even as Toronto was building that core, with Auston Matthews leading the way. Leafs were in the playoffs in 2016-17, being ahead of the curve. They made it back a year later, but that year saw Kadri suspended for multiple games due to a very illegal hit. Unfortunately for Toronto, it would happen again the next year. Both times, Toronto lost to Boston. Both times, it was Game Seven in Beantown. And of course, both times, Kadri was blamed by fans.

Maple Leafs fans claimed Kadri was "unreliable," and yes, "dirty." Never mind that players have received little to no punishment for much dirtier hits, let's just all pretend Kadri's the main problem. Apparently, Toronto agreed. The 2019 offseason saw Kadri traded from Toronto. That wasn't the most surprising thing to me. It was where they sent him. Colorado. I swear, my exact words were, "We got Kadri?!" And all it cost us was a sixth round draft pick, Tyson Barrie, and Alex Kerfoot.

The result: Kadri had a hell of a first year with us, but the old habit resurfaced in 2021. The following year saw Kadri have a career year and a hell of a postseason, and it ended with Kadri as, you guessed it, Stanley Cup Champion. During the celebration on ice, Kadri had this to say on Canadian TV:

"Anyone who thought I was a liability in the playoffs can kiss my ass!"

Mitch Marner

Which brings us to the current subject. 25 goals and 77 assists for 102 points. 13 points in 13 playoff games. A normal team gives extensions to stats like that. The Maple Leafs aren't normal. They did the very thing I feared they'd do. They let their immensely ungrateful fans tell them what to do, and they traded the closest thing they had to Auston Matthews. It would be like if the Dallas Cowboys actually traded Micah Parsons for nothing. Oh, wait, they did that? Oops. Marner's currently third on the Golden Knights with 58 points (16 G/42 A).

Meanwhile, who's leading for Toronto? Entering the break, William Nylander's the points leader, with 52 of them (18 G/34 A). Auston Matthews is the goals leader as usual with 26, and he has 48 points overall. John Tavares has 47 points, 20 of them being goals, and Matthew Knies has 46 points. So yeah, 52 points leads the Leafs. That's six less than the guy they traded.

Playoff Chances

Which brings us to the other question: where is Toronto in the standings? The Leafs currently it at 27-21-9 and 63 points. They are six points out of a playoff position, and nine points behind the Atlantic Division's Top 3 with 25 games left, and at one point, they were actually in the bottom of the entire Eastern Conference. This team is not making the playoffs this year. They're not. When the Olympics comes to an end, there will be 51 days left in the NHL's regular season. That's just over seven weeks. It's a decent amount, but given Toronto's current standing, it's not enough time. They have to pass four teams in the East, and with the standings being so close, Toronto needs to have a two-thirds percentage in their latter one-third of their season. Plain and simple, out of the maximum 50 points they can add to their total, they need to get at least 33 of them.

Auston Matthews is in his 10th year in the NHL. Nathan MacKinnon's Year Ten saw him come off winning the Stanley Cup. Connor McDavid's Year Ten saw him in the Stanley Cup Final for the second straight year, and while McDavid is still looking to win the big one, he's still much closer than Matthews is. Matthews has 427 career goals as of this point, but not only has he only advanced twice in his career, his Year Ten could see him in a very odd and terrible position. Matthews has never missed the playoffs in his career. As the saying goes, "There's a first time for everything," and chances are, Matthews' milestone 10th season could end without any playoffs for the very first time in his budding Hall of Fame career.

In Closing

So again, Maple Leafs fans, I hope it was worth it. Mitch Marner was Matthews' second-in-command, yet you scapegoated him and unfairly blamed him, and even worse, the team actually drank your Kool-Aid and traded him to Vegas for basically peanuts. "But he wanted to leave!" the fans keep saying. Minds can be changed, you know. Plus, the more I hear that Marner "wanted to leave," the less I believe it. The Leafs have a bit of a history of alienating good players.

And as this story shows, every player who gets unfairly scapegoated by Toronto fans, and then traded: they win elsewhere. I hope that, for the team's sake, they really go on a winning tear when the season resumes, but as I said before, I'm not counting on it. The Toronto Maple Leafs won't be part of the NHL's Sweet 16 this year, and that is a shame. They were one win away from their first Conference Finals appearance since 2002, and they respond by trading the guy who had over 100 points, had a point/game performance in the playoffs, and held the fort down when Matthews was out. I'm dead serious, Toronto will regret that trade; even more so if Marner actually ends up with a Cup or two in Vegas. And I can just hear those same fans if Marner does win in Vegas: "Why couldn't he play well with us?!" He was playing well in Toronto. He wasn't being appreciated, that's all.