What the Leafs Actually Need This Summer (Not Who They'll Sign)

Positions, not names

Every offseason preview this time of year leads with targets. Ehlers, Kempe, Andersson, whoever. The UFA piece already walks through the names. The more useful exercise is to reverse the question: what does the roster structurally need, regardless of which names are available to fill the slots?

Here are the five real gaps on the 2026-27 Leafs, ordered by how much they actually matter.

1. A third-line center (urgent)

The hole Nicolas Roy was supposed to fill, then wasn't, then got traded. After Auston Matthews and John Tavares, the Leafs' center depth becomes a patchwork. Max Domi can play the middle in stretches but is more useful on the wing. Steven Lorentz is a fourth-line option on his best night. There is no third-line center on the roster heading into the summer.

This is the single most important hole. A third-line center takes defensive zone draws, kills penalties, matches against opposing top-sixes when the first two lines are tired, and gives the coach matchup flexibility against teams stacked down the middle. Every successful playoff team of the last decade has had one. The Leafs, structurally, do not.

The market for this role in July — a 25-to-30 year old two-way center, 40-to-50 point upside, strong on the dot — is narrower than the top of the UFA class. Targets in this range go fast and they go expensive relative to their point totals. Treliving's willingness to pay $4M-$5M for a player whose box score doesn't justify the AAV on paper will determine whether this hole gets filled or gets papered over again.

2. A top-six winger who can drive play (urgent)

With Marner gone, the wing depth on the Leafs' top two lines is Nylander, Knies, and whoever else. Knies is a 200-foot finisher with limited creation. Maccelli and Joshua are middle-six. The team needs one winger who can drive possession, set up scoring from the half-wall, and give Matthews someone to play with who doesn't need Matthews to generate every look.

This is the slot Ehlers would fill. It's what Tuch would partially address. Whoever arrives in this role is the most important signing of the summer and the one the $17M of working cap space is designed to absorb. The Leafs don't need another 85-point winger at $11M; they need a 60-to-75-point winger at $8M-$9M who plays a complete enough game to rotate across the top nine.

3. Right-side defense beyond Carlo (important)

Morgan Rielly anchors the left side. Jake McCabe plays both sides but leans left. Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Brandon Carlo give Toronto two reasonable right-shot options. The third right-shot is either Philippe Myers at $850K or Chris Tanev returning from LTIR in a role that is almost certainly past what his body can deliver.

The Leafs' blue line is adequate, not deep. A 23-to-27 year old right-shot defenseman signed to a three or four year deal at $4M-$5M would move the defense from "adequate" to "actually good." Rasmus Andersson out of Calgary is the clearest target in the 2026 UFA class, though he'll be expensive. If the Leafs can't get Andersson or a tier-one D-man, there's a trade lane to explore.

This is a want, not a need. The bigger-priority moves are at forward.

4. A specialist power-play coach (quietly important)

The Leafs' power play declined noticeably in 2025-26. With Nylander and Matthews healthy next year, the talent on the top unit is still elite — but the structure deteriorated enough that the issue is tactical, not personnel-based.

This is the kind of hire that doesn't get media attention but changes outcomes at the margins of games. A specialist assistant coach with a modern power-play track record can produce three or four extra goals a month out of the same personnel. Over an 82-game season, that translates directly into standings points.

If Treliving keeps Berube but replaces the power-play assistant, that's the specific staff change this team needs most.

5. Goaltending depth, not a starter (low-ish priority)

The starter situation is solved. Anthony Stolarz is signed through 2030 at a $2.5M AAV that looks increasingly like a steal. Joseph Woll is on a $3.67M deal through 2028. The problem is the depth behind them.

Every team gets bitten by a three-week goalie injury cycle at some point. The Leafs are thin on AHL-to-NHL options below Stolarz and Woll, and their organizational goaltending pipeline is not deep. A minor-league signing of an experienced journeyman — the Kevin Lankinen or Collin Delia type — as an emergency third option is the kind of move Toronto should make in the first week of July and nobody will notice.

This is not a marquee spend. It's a few hundred thousand dollars of insurance, and it closes a gap that costs the team two or three games a year in March.

What doesn't need fixing

Worth saying out loud because it's easy to lose track of in a missed-playoffs offseason.

• The top line: Matthews is 28. When healthy, he's still a top-five center. The knee injury is a 2025-26 problem; it is not a 2026-27 problem once he rehabs through the summer.
• Nylander's deal: $11.5M AAV through 2032 looked expensive in 2024. Now it looks like the bargain contract of the team. Read the full analysis.
• The cap situation long-term: The cap rises to $104M in 2026-27 and $113.5M in 2027-28. The Leafs' commitments stay roughly flat. The squeeze era is ending.
• The prospect pool: Thinner than fans would like, but less thin than it's been since 2019. Easton Cowan is developing; Ben Danford is developing; the 2024-25 draft class has reasonable depth. Adding a top-5 pick on May 5 would be transformative, but the pool doesn't need transformative to be viable.

The ordering matters

If the Leafs walk out of July 1 with a third-line center, a top-six winger, and one defensive upgrade — in that order — they will have had a successful offseason, full stop. If they add a top-six winger without the third-line center, the Matthews-Tavares overexposure problem persists and the team looks similar in February to the way it looked this past February. If they add the third-line center without the winger, they're a better-structured 85-point team that still doesn't have enough scoring behind Nylander.

The hierarchy is: center depth, then scoring depth, then D depth. Treliving's offseason grade should be read against that order. And everything else — staff changes, goaltending depth, prospect development investments — are supplements, not replacements, for getting those three structural moves right.

The short version

Three positional needs: third-line center, top-six winger, right-shot second-pair D. One hidden need: a modern power-play assistant. One easy need: a backup of the backup goaltender. Fill the first three in order, make the last two cheaply, and the Leafs have done their offseason job. If they skip the order and go chasing names — which is the trap in any offseason — they end up with the same problems in November that they have in April.