Toronto’s 3–2 overtime loss drops them to 9-9-3 and slashes their playoff odds to 11.2 percent on MoneyPuck, with a crucial showdown in Montreal up next.
The Toronto Maple Leafs let another point slip away Thursday night, falling 3–2 in overtime to the Columbus Blue Jackets and dropping to an even 9-9-3 on the season.
The loss didn’t just sting — it sent their playoff chances tumbling.
According to MoneyPuck.com, the Leafs now have just an 11.2 percent chance of reaching the postseason. For a franchise built to contend, that number is alarming.
And with U.S. Thanksgiving marking the unofficial “are you in or out?” line for NHL playoff races, Toronto is now firmly on the wrong side of history.
Their next chance to reverse course comes Saturday night in Montreal, where they’ll face the Canadiens in a game that already feels heavier than it should in November.
What the Loss Means for the Season
Thursday’s defeat wasn’t just another mark in the loss column. It was the latest sign of a team drifting instead of climbing. Sitting outside a playoff position after 21 games, the Leafs now face the reality that midseason surges are difficult and late-season miracles even rarer.
In a hyper-competitive Eastern Conference, mediocrity is punished immediately: teams that tread water fall behind quickly, and teams that slip into losing patterns often stay there.
The Leafs’ 9-9-3 record reflects a team struggling to find consistency in every area. Defensive breakdowns have become routine. Goaltending swings from brilliant to brittle. Offensively, their stars generate chances but too often fail to bury them.
The OT loss to Columbus crystallized all of it — a team unable to pull away, vulnerable defensively, and ultimately punished for mistakes. As the standings tighten, every dropped point becomes exponentially more damaging.
Why MoneyPuck’s Odds Plummeted
The dramatic fall to 11.2 percent isn’t just a reaction to one game. MoneyPuck’s playoff model is built on thousands of season simulations, each influenced by the Leafs’ current record, their underlying numbers, and the strength of the remaining schedule. And in each of those categories, Toronto has slid backward.
The model weighs expected goals for (xGF) and against (xGA), and Toronto’s recent trends have been troubling. They’re generating chances, but they’re also giving up just as many — or more — mainly due to structural issues in their own zone.
Their goaltending, one of the most volatile factors in playoff prediction models, has been wildly inconsistent. When a team’s defensive metrics and goaltending both trend downward, simulations produce fewer and fewer paths to the postseason.
MoneyPuck also accounts for remaining opponents, and the Leafs face a tough stretch ahead, with divisional matchups that historically swing the playoff race.
When you add in their recent cold streak, the model simply sees limited mathematical space for a turnaround. The 11.2 percent figure isn’t punitive — it’s probability catching up to performance.
The U.S. Thanksgiving Effect
This moment is even more ominous because of the NHL’s most reliable unofficial milestone: U.S. Thanksgiving. For decades, teams outside the playoff picture on this date almost never claw their way in. The schedule gets grueling, divisional games become cutthroat, and the margin for error evaporates.
The Leafs are now one of the teams below the critical line, and historically, that’s where seasons go to die.
Toronto now sits in a statistical danger zone. To beat the odds, they must outpace multiple teams ahead of them while avoiding prolonged losing streaks. It’s not impossible — but it is rare. And rare is not where a team with Cup aspirations wants to be.
What’s Next — The Montreal Game
The path doesn’t get any easier. The Leafs travel to Montreal for a Saturday night showdown that, in other years, would be a routine midseason rivalry game.
This year, it feels like a pressure test. A win steadies the narrative, buys breathing room, and offers a chance to reset after a shaky November.
A loss, especially another one riddled with the same defensive lapses, could deepen the slide and push the playoff math even further out of reach.
Montreal won’t be a soft landing spot, either — the Canadiens play aggressively at home and relish any chance to worsen Toronto’s misery.
For the Leafs, the stakes are already creeping into must-win territory.
Running Out of Racetrack
The Leafs aren’t finished, but the math is ugly and getting worse. At 11.2 percent playoff odds and trending downward, they’re running out of road far earlier than expected.
Saturday’s game in Montreal won’t determine the season, but it might determine whether Toronto begins fighting back — or begins free-falling.