Major Concern Emerges About Maple Leafs Roster Ahead of 2025-26 Season

Brad Treliving called his end of season press conference a few weeks ago and spoke about wanting to change the DNA of the Maple Leafs. Whether that was bringing in new faces or letting old ones go, things are going to change for sure.

But there is one issue that no one really seems to pay much attention to that could be an indicator the Maple Leafs are potentially trending in the wrong direction; and it's the ultimate equalizer: Time.

Thanks to a new feature on the salary cap site PuckPedia that allows fans to sort teams by their average age, the Toronto Maple Leafs topped the list with an age of 30.9.

They are followed by the Penguins just below them at 30.7, then rounding out the Top 5 are Edmonton, Winnipeg, and the New York Islanders.

The youngest team in the league would be the Montreal Canadiens with an average of 25.9. Granted, these numbers account for the players currently under contract with their team, and not any UFA or RFA's.

Per Hockey Reference, the Toronto Maple Leafs' oldest player is technically Ryan Reaves at 38, and while they don't count towards the age currently, they had Max Pacioretty at 36, and John Tavares at 34.

Then with people under contract we have Chris Tanev at 35, Oliver Ekman-Larsson at 33, and then a slew of 30 and 31 year old players.

The only players on their defensive pairings who are under 30 are Brandon Carlo and Simon Benoit, but Carlo is 28 and Benoit is 26; they aren't exactly your fresh faced 25-year olds.

They do have some youth with the likes of Matthew Knies, Joseph Woll, and Auston Matthews; but everyone seems to hover around 28-30 years of age.

Which obviously makes sense due to their average, but it shows a bigger sign of something: Toronto is not preparing for their future.

Constantly in win-now mode, the team stacks its lineup with veterans and older and proven talent that sometimes doesn't translate when they come over. Their entire defense will be 35+ at the end of things, and with how much faster the game is every year; can they keep up?

Probably not, but what they can do is give their younger players some more time, something they are not shy about doing.

Instead of adding older players, maybe they could look at names like Jacob Quillan, William Villeneuve and especially Easton Cowan to add a ton of youth and skill to the lineup.

They can also trade some of their older guys like David Kampf, Calle Jarnkrok, and even Bobby McMann, who is going to be 29 in a week but feels like he just entered the league as a 23-year old.

They could also go out and sign some younger guys like Luke Kunin, Ryan Lindgren, or Dante Fabbro to inject some NHL-ready youth into the lineup; all three are 27 or younger.

Either way you put it, the Maple Leafs are only going to get older unless they do something quickly.

Time waits for no one, and Toronto is watching the sand through the hourglass.