With the 4–2 regulation win on Sunday night against the Minnesota Wild, the Toronto Maple Leafs remain outside of the bottom five and outside of the playoffs. To put it another way: Mid. To make matters worse for Leafs fans, Auston Matthews suffered a Grade 3 MCL tear from an egregious knee-on-knee hit by Radko Gudas and is out for the rest of the season. Nobody even bothered to stand up for Matthews, which shows how far the Leafs are from a winning culture.
With Matthews’ injury, finally, head coach Craig Berube is playing players from the Toronto Marlies who deserve a look. Seemingly out of nowhere, Bo Groulx has quickly become a beacon of positivity for the Leafs in a season that has had very few.
In this article, let’s take a look at Bo Groulx’s journey from the QMJHL to the Toronto Marlies and how he has looked in his first four games with the Leafs.
Bo Groulx: Career beginnings
Bo Groulx played five seasons in the QMJHL. Four for the Halifax Mooseheads and one for the Moncton Wildcats. His best season, point-wise, was in the 2018–19 season, where he scored 31 goals and 49 assists for 80 points. This put him six points off the team lead in points for the Mooseheads that season.
The Anaheim Ducks selected Groulx 54th overall in the second round of the 2018 NHL Draft. At the time, Groulx was a highly touted prospect. He was noted as a solid two-way player, but more defensively oriented with a lower offensive ceiling.
Groulx spent a lot of time in the AHL, playing for the San Diego Gulls. In his first season with the Gulls, Groulx scored ten goals, 19 assists for 29 points in 42 games. This was good enough for third on the team.
The following season, Groulx made his NHL debut for the Ducks, appearing in 18 games for the Ducks, registering one goal, two assists for three points. However, he spent the majority of his time with the Gulls.
Groulx’s biggest opportunity came in the 2023–24 season, where he appeared in 45 games for the Ducks, registering two assists and 22 penalty minutes. He then signed a one-year deal with the New York Rangers in the offseason for $775K.
He wouldn’t play a single game with the Rangers; instead, he played 47 games in the AHL with the Hartford Wolf Pack, where he scored 15 goals, 22 assists for 37 points. This put him second in team scoring.
Bo Groulx in the blue and white
Groulx signed a two-year, $1.63M contract with the Leafs this past offseason. At the time, I think most Leafs fans were like: “Who?” However, for the Marlies this season, Groulx is having a career year, scoring 27 goals, 23 assists for 50 points in 54 games, leading the team in goals and points.
In his Leafs’ debut in the 3–1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens, he played 14:13. However, his excellent two-way play earned him more ice-time, which in the last three games, he’s been between 17:00 and 19:00 minutes. I mean, the fact that he has scored three goals in four games probably helps. He has more than tripled his goal output in 22% fewer games.
It’s how he plays the game, which has been very encouraging in a season that has gone off the rails. He can get to the front of the net for deflections, he plays hard every shift, and has a lethal shot and actually uses it. He embodies what the Leafs need to do more collectively. Perhaps Groulx is our new Bobby McMann.
Groulx recently turned 26, which is just over three years younger than McMann is now, but both had breakout seasons with the Marlies. When McMann was 26, during the 2022–23 season, McMann scored 21 goals, eight assists for 29 points in 30 games with the Marlies before playing ten games with the Leafs. McMann wouldn’t have his breakout year with the Leafs until the following season.
While McMann scored 24 goals with the Marlies in the season prior, the 2021–22 season, Groulx has consistently been a 10–15 goal scorer in the AHL. Nevertheless, Groulx is showing he has potential, and the Leafs need to see what they have in their prospects and young players.
The Leafs need to play the rookies
I understand it’s the AHL, and AHL success does not necessarily translate to NHL success. But the fact that he has just been called up recently is a travesty. It took the Leafs being sellers at the trade deadline, trading away the third-line centre, Nicolas Roy, the fourth-line centre, Scott Laughton, and an injury to the franchise player, Auston Matthews, for Groulx to see some NHL games.
Especially with the season the Leafs have had, why not try calling him up earlier? He might have helped develop chemistry (even playing him as a winger) in the line-up, a line-up that has clearly shown all year that it does not have chemistry. Yes, it’s perhaps too early to say this, given he has only played four NHL games, but it’s frustrating seeing how the Leafs develop (or don’t develop) players.
Bobby McMann showed promise, yet he largely played on the third line this season for the Leafs before being traded. He has had a tremendous impact on the Seattle Kraken, scoring three goals and two assists for five points in two games, playing a larger role. Players like Jacob Quillan, Easton Cowan, and, for years, Nicholas Robertson have been called up and put into positions that do not optimize their skillsets. Or, in Quillan’s case, called up and not used at all.
Given the Leafs are trending towards the bottom of the league, there’s no time like the present to see what you have in the minors. After all, if Groulx can develop into a serviceable player for the Leafs next year, this would be a huge win.
