2025 is less than a month away—a fact that I still refuse to believe as I’m pretty sure it was April 2020 like three weeks ago.
Either way, we thought we’d take a look back at the last 25 years of the Toronto Maple Leafs and try to put together a couple lineups of the greatest players from this quarter century. We elected to group players according to their general positions: forwards, defencemen, and goalies.
Trigger Warning: This piece will contain references to the recent history of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Please ensure you have your therapist’s phone number handy in order to process the trauma that we will be revisiting.
First Team
Mitch Marner – Auston Matthews – Mats Sundin
Mitch Marner:
Somewhat surprisingly—considering he’s been on a team with Auston Matthews for most of his NHL career—Mitch Marner is the highest-scoring Leafs player over the last 25 years with 204 goals and 473 assists for 677 points.
Marner has had a fractious time in Toronto, being the target of this passionate fanbase’s vitriol on multiple occasions. A hometown boy who grew up a Leafs fan, Marner should be a universally beloved Leaf, and he is definitely very popular. However, his is often the first name to be bandied about in fanbase trade talks.
Mitch Marner is a regular season beast with 1.12 points per game, just shy of Auston Matthews for second over the last 25 years. He leads the team in points and assists and is tied for second in power play points with Mats Sundin. Safe to say, he’ll probably be solo in second very soon. Marner has made the playoffs every year of his Leafs career, leading the Leafs in playoff points this century. While having a 100% playoff appearance rate is certainly laudable, the Leafs only have one series win in nine attempts.
Auston Matthews:
Arguably the best player to ever lace up for the Leafs, Auston Matthews leads the team in goals, plus/minus, points per game, and even strength points. He currently sits third on the Leafs all-time goals list, 13 behind Darryl Sittler, and 44 behind Mats Sundin. Smart money’s on him being in that number one spot by the time his Leafs tenure ends. He leads the Leafs in playoff goals over this time period, and is second in playoff points.
During the offseason after the 2023–24 season, Matthews was named the 26th captain in Leafs history. He has six 40-goal seasons, two 100-point seasons, and a regular season points per game average of 1.15, leading the Leafs. Matthews won the Calder trophy in his rookie season, the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award in 2021–22 and has won the Rocket Richard Trophy three times. While he might not yet be the greatest player in Leafs history, it’s hard to argue that he’s not the best.
Mats Sundin:
The face of the Leafs franchise for over a decade and a first-ballot Hall of Famer, it’s impossible to leave Mats Sundin off this list. He leads the Leafs all-time in points and goals scored, and sits fourth and third respectively in the 21st century. Sundin also has more playoff success than most players of this era, with a 5–5 playoff series record since 2000. He made it to the Eastern Conference Semifinals thrice and the Conference Finals once.
The only player on this list to have his number raised to the rafters, Mats Sundin more than deserves to make the team.
Morgan Rielly
No skater has played in more games for the Toronto Maple Leafs this century than Morgan Rielly. He eclipses Tomas Kaberle, with whom he shares a pairing on this list, by 77 games, having laced up for the Leafs 816 times. The longest-tenured Leaf on this list, he leads defencemen in goals, assists, and points.
In the playoffs Rielly has also been the best Leafs defenceman, again leading the team in games played, goals, assists, and points. He received his first all-star nod in 2024 to cap off a very solid and dependable quarter century.
Tomas Kaberle
The second-longest tenured Leafs over this timeframe, Tomas Kaberle was a blueline staple in the 2000s. A core component of the Leafs playoff success in the early part of the 21st Century, Kaberle ate up minutes. During the run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2002, he averaged almost 29 minutes per game. He’s second in points and assists, third in goals, and has the highest points per game average of defencemen on this list.
Kaberle may not have been the flashiest player, or racked up the most awards, but he was consistent and his importance to the teams that made the deepest playoffs runs this century easily earns him a spot on the top pair.
Curtis Joseph:
Deciding between Ed Belfour and Curtis Joseph for the top goalie slot was difficult. While Frederik Andersen was the longest-serving Leafs goaltender this century, I can’t in good conscience include him. Ultimately while Belfour was the better goalie, the playoff success of CuJo, as well as his legacy, bumped him up to the starting spot.
Curtis Joseph’s best two seasons with the Leafs came before the turn of the century. In his first season in 1998–99, he was runner-up to Dominik Hasek for the Vezina, and fourth in Hart Trophy voting. The next year, again a Vezina finalist, Joseph finished fourth in wins and save percentage, and first in even-strength save percentage. However, it was the playoff success after 2000 that got him the top netminder spot.
CuJo was the backstop for the deep runs the Leafs made in 2000, 2001, and 2002. He pitched a 27-save shutout against Carolina in Game 5 of the 2002 Eastern Conference Finals to avoid elimination, and saved 33/34 shots the following game, before allowing the OT series winner. An all-time beloved Leaf, CuJo’s legacy remains bright in Toronto.
Second Team
William Nylander – John Tavares – Phil Kessel
Ed Belfour
William Nylander:
The longest-tenured forward on this list, William Nylander has played 628 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He currently sits at third in points, and second in goals over this time period. Both of Willy’s last two seasons were 40 goals and he sniffed 100 points last year, finishing at 98. His game has improved and he is taking on more responsibility, driving more play. He’s already tied for eleventh all-time in goals and points, with the top 10 almost guaranteed.
John Tavares:
The 25th Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, John Tavares was a hometown hero the second he signed with Toronto. I remember not believing initially that we had actually signed a notable free agent and his first season was truly magical. 47 goals, 41 assists for 88 points, a career-high that likely won’t be reached again. His production has diminished but he has still posted 50 points every season.
His contract hasn’t looked as bad as some were worried initially, and it remains a question where he’ll play next year. But, if this is the last year we see Pajama Boy in the blue and white, it’s been an absolute pleasure.
Phil Kessel:
Over his six seasons with the Maple Leafs, Phil Kessel made the playoffs once and I bet a good portion of this fanbase wish he never did. I am of course referring to the 2013 series against the Bruins (please refer to the trigger warning at the beginning of this piece).
Despite truly no playoff success, Phil Kessel was a very productive Leaf. Over his time in Toronto, only four players had more goals. Kessel had 30 goals in four out of five seasons, and was on pace for 30 in the lockout-shortened 2013 season. After missing the first 10 games of the 2009–10 season with a shoulder injury, Kessel played every single game after, starting a monstrous 1064-game ironman streak. Arguably a scapegoat for a truly terrible era of the Leafs, Kessel was nonetheless one of the better players to wear the blue and white this century.
Bryan McCabe:
A stalwart on the Leafs blueline for almost a decade and a member of the early 2000s teams that last made deep playoff runs, Bryan McCabe belongs on this list. Playing the fourth most games of any Leaf defenceman this century, McCabe is third in points and second in goals scored. He’s also second in plus/minus with +63, behind TJ Brodie at +70, but with 249 more games played. Playing a heavy game with a memorable shot, he was fifth league-wide in defenceman scoring across his seven seasons in Toronto.
Jake Gardiner:
I know, I know, but would you rather I included Dion Phaneuf?
The fourth defenceman on this list was tough but I simply could not put Dion Phaneuf and his legendary -31 plus/minus on a quarter-century team. Gardiner’s longevity—he played the third most games of all Leafs defencemen—coupled with the fact that he both saw more playoff games and wasn’t a part of the 2013 team edges him over Dion.
Saying he’s prone to gaffes is potentially the understatement of this century, but he generally moved the puck in the right direction and played at least 79 games in five of his six full seasons with the Leafs.
Ed Belfour:
The legendary first-ballot Hall of Famer only played three seasons in Toronto, but was legendary for two of them. Over 170 games played, Belfour won 93 times. He finished third in Vezina voting in the 2002–03 season, with a .922 SV%, good for fourth in the league.
In 2003–04 he had 10 shutouts, the most by any Leafs goalie in the modern era. After the 2004–05 lockout, he returned as a 40 year old to pretty terrible results. But for two seasons, Toronto had one of the league’s best between the pipes.
__________
So there you have it, our Toronto Maple Leafs team of the quarter century. The Leafs have had some of the highest-end talent near the the top since the Matthews Era began, but have not had the depth to be consistently successful this century. And obviously, no Cups.
Hopefully that changes soon, but it’s hard to complain about the superstar players on the roster right now.
