Maple Leafs 2026-27 Projections: 91 Points, 37% Playoff Odds

The Maple Leafs 2026-27 Projections Have Settled Around 91 Points

With a week to go before the season starts, the Maple Leafs 2026-27 projections have converged on a number that is both encouraging and insufficient: roughly 91 points, up from the 78 Toronto posted last season, with a playoff probability in the high-30s. That is the shape of the consensus across public models and preview series — a meaningfully better hockey team that still misses.

We think the number is close to right and the reasoning behind it is wrong in two specific, opposite directions. Here is the accounting.

What the Models Actually Say

One public model circulating this month projects Toronto for 91 points with a 37 per cent chance of making the playoffs, a 4.9 per cent chance of winning the Atlantic, a 2.9 per cent chance of reaching the Stanley Cup Final and a 1.2 per cent chance of winning it. Those are the numbers of a bubble team, which is exactly what they are meant to describe.

Daily Faceoff's team preview landed in the same place with different phrasing: the Leafs improve to the wild-card bubble and play meaningful games into early April, but fall short of a berth.

The magazine projections were marginally kinder. The Hockey News had Toronto in the playoff hunt with Auston Matthews scoring 40 goals again and the club finishing fourth in the Atlantic, ahead of Buffalo and just behind Tampa Bay — a forecast we broke down when it landed in our look at the fourth-place prediction.

Notably, the projections disagree with each other about Buffalo specifically. The magazine has Toronto ahead of the Sabres. At least one analytical preview argued it is hard to imagine the Leafs finishing above the Lightning, Panthers, Canadiens, Sabres or even the Senators. That disagreement is not a rounding error — it is the difference between a playoff spot and sixth in the division.

Thirteen Points Is a Real Improvement

Start by giving the summer its due. A projected jump from 78 points to 91 is not a rounding error either. It is the largest year-over-year improvement most models are forecasting for any team in the Eastern Conference, and it reflects genuine roster change rather than regression to the mean.

John Chayka made roughly nine notable additions: Sergei Bobrovsky in goal on a three-year deal, Darren Raddysh on the blue line, Colton Sissons at $4.25 million on a two-year term, Teddy Blueger, Brandon Duhaime, Jack Roslovic, Emil Andrae via trade from Philadelphia, and Nick Paul to settle the third-line centre question. Add the first overall pick, Gavin McKenna, and a new coaching staff under Jim Hiller.

The bottom six, which was an active liability last season, is now a functional group with real centre depth. That alone is worth several points in the standings. We traced the whole rebuild in our look at Chayka's overhaul heading into camp.

Where the Projections Are Probably Too Low

Two things, and they are related.

The first is special teams. Toronto's power play converted at 16.8 per cent last season, 25th in the league, down from 24.8 per cent the year before. The penalty kill finished fifth at 83.5 per cent. Projection models are generally conservative about special-teams rebounds because they regress everything toward league average — but that is precisely the direction Toronto's power play needs to move, and the club has spent real resources on it by hiring Daniel Alfredsson to run the unit. A power play that gets back to even league average is worth several standings points on its own, and the models treat that as a maybe rather than a plan.

The second is that models struggle with roster discontinuity in the direction of improvement. When a team replaces six replacement-level players with six league-average ones, the historical comparables are noisy and the projections hedge. Toronto's floor is genuinely higher than last season's in a way that is hard to capture in a model trained on continuity.

Where They Are Probably Too High

Now the other side, and it is the part Leafs fans will like less.

Health. Matthews is returning from knee surgery to repair a Grade 3 MCL tear that ended his season in March. Chris Tanev turns 37 in December, played 11 games last season and had core-muscle surgery in the spring. Max Domi is expected to open the year on long-term injured reserve after back surgery with complications. Dakota Joshua's availability for opening night is uncertain. Projection systems generally assume a normal injury distribution; this roster is not starting from a normal baseline.

Goaltending. Bobrovsky is a 37-year-old two-time Vezina winner, and public projections have been blunt about the risk — one model had Toronto's goaltending near the bottom of the league, a goals-saved-above-expected forecast that ranked the Toronto crease 30th. Anthony Stolarz has a strong track record in a smaller sample. This is the single highest-variance position group on the team, and 91 points assumes it lands somewhere in the middle. It might not land anywhere near the middle in either direction.

And the cap. Toronto is operating right at the line — roughly $106.75 million against a $104 million ceiling, legal only through Domi's LTIR placement, with about $70,000 of margin under the relief threshold. That means no in-season flexibility to fix what breaks. A team with cap space that loses a defenceman in November signs a replacement. Toronto calls up a Marlie. You can see the full picture on our contracts page.

The Atlantic Is the Whole Problem

Here is the uncomfortable structural fact: Toronto could improve by 13 points and finish in exactly the same place.

Buffalo won the division last season. Florida is Florida, and Brady Tkachuk's arrival in Sunrise made the defending problem worse for everyone else in the division. Montreal won 48 games, reached the conference final and returned essentially intact. Tampa Bay remains Tampa Bay. Ottawa is a young team on the rise. That is five clubs with a credible case to finish ahead of the Leafs, in a division where the top three spots are effectively spoken for before a puck drops.

Ninety-one points is usually not enough for an Eastern wild card. In most recent seasons the second wild card has landed between 92 and 96. The projections are not saying Toronto is bad. They are saying Toronto is roughly the seventh- or eighth-best team in a conference that takes eight, in a division that will eat several of them.

Our Number

We will put a stake in the ground: 94 points and a wild-card spot, decided in the final week.

The reasoning is narrow. We think the power play rebound is more likely than the models do — it is the cheapest available improvement on the roster and the club has organized its coaching staff around it. We think the bottom six is worth more than a model can see, because its value shows up as goals prevented in minutes that previously bled. And we think home ice against a division that plays a lot of one-goal games matters at the margin.

We are also aware that we are arguing for three points above a consensus that has no obvious flaw. If Bobrovsky is finished, or if Matthews' knee is not what it was, none of the rest of this matters and 84 points is the answer. That is the honest range: 84 to 97, with the goaltending doing most of the work in deciding which end.

What's Next

The roster is due Sept. 28 and the season opens at home against Montreal on Sept. 29. The first genuine data arrives in mid-October, and the specific thing to watch is not the record — it is the power-play conversion rate and Bobrovsky's save percentage through ten games. Those two numbers will move Toronto's projection more than anything else that happens.

Track it as it develops on our standings page. We also laid out the wider bull and bear cases in most improved team or tire fire, which remains the honest framing of this season.

Ninety-one points is the market price on the 2026-27 Maple Leafs. We think it is a little low, and we would not bet the house on it.