Why the Toronto Maple Leafs have become the most helpless franchise in sports
Another year full of promise ending in devastation: such is the legacy of the Toronto Maple Leafs. On Sunday evening the Leafs laid their final egg of the 2024-25 season in front of a sold out Toronto crowd as they fell 6-1 to the Florida Panthers, ending their season in the second round of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Crashing out might be par for the course for the Maple Leafs, but historically nobody in professional sports has mastered losing in the playoffs quite like the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sunday night marked the ninth season in a row the team has made the playoffs, only to be eliminated in the first or second round. It’s also now been a staggering 23 years since the team made it to conference finals.
If that sounds bad, I promise you it’s about to get much, much worse.
When we look at the major professional sports in North America, the NFL, NBA, MLB, WNBA and NHL here are the teams who have made the playoffs the most times in the last 50 years without actually winning a championship.
- NFL: Minnesota Vikings — 26 playoff berths, 6 conference championship berths, 1 Super Bowl berths, 0 championships
- NBA: Atlanta Hawks — 31 playoff berths, 2 conference championship berths, 0 NBA Finals berths, 0 championships
- MLB: Milwaukee Brewers — 10 playoff berths, 2 league conference championship berths, 1 World Series berth, 0 championships
- WNBA: Connecticut Sun — 17 playoff berths, 11 conference championship berths, 2 WNBA Finals berths, 0 championships
One could make an argument for the Vikings being the saddest team in pro sports, sure — but at least they made it to the Super Bowl four times only to have their hopes dashed. Also football being a single-game elimination format means anyone can have a bad day and get bounced, whereas having best-of-seven series truly gives a good team an opportunity to fight through.
And yet, the Leafs just keep on failing.
Of their 36 playoff appearances since 1968 the Leafs have only made it past the first or second round six times. That means you could be a 57-year-old Toronto fan, and during your entire life span the team has made the playoffs 63% of seasons, but only given you a feeling you might win it all 16% of the time.
Not only this, but during that same span the Leafs have finished 1st or 2nd in the Eastern Conference at the end of the regular season 10 times. On 10 separate occasions they were one of the best teams in hockey only to let everything slip through their fingers. In the first 50 years of their existence the Leafs won 12 Stanley Cup Championships, they were a regular lock for the Cup Finals, and in the last 50 years it’s been a wasteland.
When you factor in the weight of importance hockey has in Toronto, the legacy of brilliance the Leafs had from 1917-to-1967, and the expectation this team has every single time they step on the ice then it’s clear: Nobody in sports is as gifted at losing than the Maple Leafs.
