Another season of playoff disappointment in Leaf Nation. Cue up the 1967 jokes. Post the social media memes that have been regurgitated so frequently that the activity has become all but a rite of passage in Toronto.
Not only does the Leafs’ playoff exit prolong the generations-long championship drought – the longest of that of any NHL franchise – but it brings the once-proud franchise one step closer to relative obscurity. Toronto is now down to just six more chances to capture hockey’s Holy Grail before all traces of previous glory are removed from the Stanley Cup.
Yikes.
To provide context: most hockey fans are aware that the Stanley Cup is engraved with the names of all its winning teams: players and management. The cup contains five bands, each with the inscriptions of 13 rosters. In order to retain the trophy’s dimensions, every 13 years, the top band is retired to the vault at the Hockey Hall of Fame to make room for a new ring.
The most recent band retirement occurred at the end of the 2017-18 season when the Washington Capitals claimed their first-ever title. This necessitated the removal of a dozen championship teams ending in 1964-65 (one Habs team occupied twice the normal allotted space), including the Leafs teams that won three Cups in a row, from 1962-64.
Ever since Alex Ovechkin led his team to the promised land, the trophy that gets hoisted at season’s end and passed around from player to player – a.k.a. the Presentation Cup – has had but one Leafs team inscribed on it, that of course being the 1967 edition of the franchise.
Much to the chagrin of Leafs Nation – but to the surprise of no one who has followed the team for any length of time – the 2025 inscription won’t contain the names of Auston Matthews and company.
That leaves just five more spaces on the current band to get the name “Toronto Maple Leafs” engraved on the current Stanley Cup. Consider the following two scenarios.
Either the Leafs don’t win a championship until 2029-30, the last year of Morgan Rielly’s contract. As a result, they squeak into the final space on the bottom band where they are immortalized for a full year, along with the 1967 squad, simultaneously.
Or, they don’t win until 2030-31, in which case the band with the ’67 roster is removed, but the Leafs become the first team on the newly created ring. In either case, at least one Toronto squad would still remain on the Cup.
Sadly, it’s hard to envision that the franchise is on the path to hockey glory anytime soon. The roster will almost certainly suffer a talent setback this off-season, given Mitch Marner’s imminent departure, and the status of John Tavares still uncertain.
In the certainly plausible scenario that the Leafs don’t win a Cup in the next six years, the “Toronto Maple Leafs” inscription will be completely absent from the trophy. A sad indictment for a franchise that carries so much history.
