Leafs Are The Last Team Standing With The Championship Curse

The puck dropped at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday night as a classic Original Six rivalry opened the 2026-27 season in style. Toronto Maple Leafs fans arrived at the rink with rose-coloured glasses, beaming with optimism following the breaking news that the team had acquired skilled winger Kirill Marchenko from the Columbus Blue Jackets.

They left undoubtedly hoping that the 3-2 home loss to the Montreal Canadiens will serve more as an afterthought than an omen.

The Leafs, it may be said, are the last remaining “curse” of the four major professional sports leagues.

The New York Knicks crushed their hex last year, as Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and company captured an NBA title, their first since 1973. The Boston Red Sox have accumulated serious hardware, winning four World Series championships in the past quarter century after finally breaking the “Curse of the Bambino” in 2004.

The Buffalo Bills could be on their way to making history this season, entering the year among the Super Bowl favourites. They deserve credit for coming "oh so close" in the 1990s, with four consecutive Super Bowl appearances, a remarkable run by a legendary squad.

The Original Six

Across the board, every other member of that exclusive group has experienced championship glory in the modern era. The Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings have each won multiple Stanley Cups within the past three decades. The Boston Bruins captured one. So did the New York Rangers.

The year before Mark Messier, Adam Graves and company lifted Lord Stanley in 1994, the Montreal Canadiens added another chapter to their seemingly untouchable legacy, defeating a Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings team 4-1 in the Final to capture their 24th Stanley Cup.

Now the Leafs stand alone.

Toronto is the only Original Six franchise that has failed to win the Stanley Cup in any of the past six decades, and hasn't even appeared in the Stanley Cup Final since 1967. Proud Leaf fans don't necessarily need to be reminded of the massive gap in time since the Cup was hoisted in Toronto. Everyone knows it. It has now spanned generations.

Like Cleveland in baseball or the Bills of the 1990s, a great deal of pride and satisfaction could be attached simply to making a deep run, and reaching the Cup final.

Just get to the Final. That, in itself, would put the Leafs in the company of the Vancouver Canucks and the recent Connor McDavid-led Edmonton Oilers, teams that came agonizingly close to ending their own championship droughts.

So does this Leafs team have the DNA to arrive at that place? Is it a reasonable goal? Here are a few reasons to believe, and a few more to be well...realistic.

Strengths

There is no question that Toronto's front office, led by GM John Chayka, has gone out and acquired serious talent and offensive firepower.

There is one obvious strength coming out of the gate, and that is the potential configuration of the forward lines.

Kirill Marchenko gives Auston Matthews another legitimate scoring threat, while Gavin McKenna, the first overall pick in this year's draft joins John Tavares and William Nylander on what could be a dangerous second unit.

Matthews and Nylander remain elite offensive pieces. Marchenko is coming off a 31-goal, 74-point season. McKenna brings the kind of young, dynamic talent that should change the ceiling of this franchise.

Suddenly, the Leafs have scoring threats spread throughout the lineup rather than relying exclusively on their established stars to carry the offence.

Concerns

The blue line. Morgan Rielly remains the most established puck-moving defenceman on the roster, but Toronto's depth behind him is less convincing. Jake McCabe, Chris Tanev, Darren Raddysh, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Troy Stecher provide experience, toughness and NHL pedigree. Once again, there isn't an obvious second elite defenceman capable of controlling a playoff series from the back end.

That could become a problem when the games matter most. The Leafs may be able to score its way through stretches of the regular season. Four rounds of playoff hockey are different. Defensive depth gets exposed. Mistakes become magnified. The ability to move the puck under pressure becomes critical. Eventually, every championship team needs to find a way to win games when the offence isn't clicking.

Goaltending presents another variable. The Leafs have brought in Sergei Bobrovsky to join Anthony Stolarz, giving the position a dramatically different look. Until this group plays meaningful hockey together though, that remains another question rather than an answer. That's the most fascinating part of this Leafs team.

After missing the playoffs last season, Toronto has essentially rebuilt the supporting cast around Matthews and Nylander. The result definitely could be something special, but of course, it could also take time.

All In On The Leafs?

Poolies and Leafs Nation hubs have probably already committed to a potentially huge 35-1 futures wager on Toronto hoisting the Cup next June. You can understand the optimism.

There is offensive talent. There is youth. There is size. There is a new-look roster and, perhaps most intriguingly, a potential superstar in McKenna entering the organization while Matthews and Nylander are still here.

But after missing the playoffs entirely last season, is expecting a Stanley Cup simply asking too much, too soon?

The Leafs have spent nearly six decades waiting for this.

Maybe this is finally the group that can make the drought interesting again.

First, they have to prove they can make it to the spring.