NHL Weekend Shockers: Penguins’ Turmoil, Sharks’ Rise, and Toronto’s Unthinkable Collapse

Toronto became the epicenter of hockey chatter this past weekend, and no, it wasn’t just any typical gaze from the hockey aficionados. Usually, when the Maple Leafs are off the ice, there’s an undeniable whisper among the league—“Where the heck are the Leafs?” Yet, this weekend bore a peculiar charge.

Mitch Marner’s first return to the Toronto ice since his seismic summer move to Vegas lit up Friday night’s atmosphere, bringing a mix of nostalgia and tension. Then Sunday’s unusual afternoon matchup pitted the Leafs against the league’s current powerhouse, a contest underscored by the slow, painful reality of a playoff spot slipping through Toronto’s fingers. These games didn’t merely occupy the schedule—they defined the city’s mood and the team’s spiraling narrative.

Four consecutive losses and a record shadowed by uncertainty since mid-January leave the Leafs skating on thin ice; their season’s promise dissolving into disappointment. So, how did it all pan out? I’m dedicating this week’s ‘bonus five’ to peeling back the layers of Toronto’s weekend ordeal—offering an insider’s take on everything that unfolded both on and off the rink.

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The eyes of the hockey world were on Toronto this weekend. That’s not unusual, because it’s the home of the league’s most important team and whenever they’re not on screen, all the other teams should be asking “Where are the Maple Leafs?” But this time, there were a few specific reasons.

The first was Mitch Marner, finally returning to Toronto on Friday for the first time since his summer departure to Las Vegas. On Sunday, it was a rare afternoon game, this one featuring a visit from the league’s best team. And both games took place against a backdrop of a season fading away, as the Leafs stumble their way toward an uninspiring playoff miss.

That's four losses in a row for the Maple Leafs, who fall to 1-4-2 in their last seven games.

They haven't won in regulation since Jan. 10.

The losing streak they couldn't afford to go on has happened.

— James Mirtle (@mirtle.bsky.social) January 25, 2026 at 4:04 PM

So how’d it go? I’m going to use my bonus five this week on an in-depth analysis of all the most important news from the Leafs’ weekend.

Bonus five: Thoughts on a lost weekend in Toronto

5. Can we please get Craig Berube a hat? – The Leafs coach showed up on Friday with a nasty gash across his forehead, apparently from a gym accident. It looked bad when he unveiled it to the media.

Leafs HC Craig Berube had an accident in the gym, leaving him with discolouring in his face and a massive gash across his head. 🤕

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— TSN (@tsnofficial.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 11:56 AM

But somehow, that didn’t prepare us for what it would look like under the bright lights behind the bench. Look, I’m as much a traditionalist as anyone, and I get that coaches are expected to go formal these days. But surely we can make an exception here for a few days, right? Sure we can.

4. No, really, cover that up – The guy looks like the secret child of Frankenstein’s monster and Abdullah the Butcher. Give the man a cap. Or a toque. Or a Claude Julien-style outdoor game derby. Or a sulky teenager’s hoodie. Or a guardian cap from the NFL. Or a lampshade. Or a lucha mask. Or one of Roger Neilson’s unused paper bags. Literally anything. Please, we’re begging you.

3. Speaking of ugly things nobody should have to look at – Breaking: The Maple Leafs are bad again. Friday was the biggest regular-season game of the year, and they barely seemed interested. And on Sunday, a slumping Avalanche team that had lost two straight came into Toronto and almost looked bored, toying with the Leafs for a few hours without breaking much of a sweat on the way to a win that was never in doubt.

2. Wait, am I working out wrong? – I’m no gym rat, but I try to get there a few times a week, and I’m not sure I could figure out a way to gash my head like that if you paid me to. I thought we were still all lifting weights and shaking those rope things. Have the rest of you moved on to juggling chainsaws? I’m concerned about this.

1. Oh right, the Marner game – After all the hype, we got … that. Not sure what to say except that this guy gets it.

Ah well, at least William Nylander is having fun. That’s the important part.

(That, and getting Berube a hat. Mainly the hat thing.)

On to this week’s rankings, which do not feature the Maple Leafs…

Road to the Cup

The five teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.

Wait, what?

Six teams currently have a better record than the Buffalo Sabres.

Colorado, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Dallas, Detroit and Minnesota. https://t.co/C35B1kJvhx

— Julian McKenzie (@jkamckenzie) January 24, 2026

No, I didn’t put the Sabres in the top five this week, but … are we getting close to having to consider it? Is this really happening? Somebody hold me.

5. Vegas Golden Knights (25-14-2, +14 true goals differential*) – What the heck was that yesterday in Ottawa? That’s three regulation losses out of four, and Montreal up next tomorrow. But so far, the Oilers haven’t really been gaining any ground.

4. Dallas Stars (29-14-9, +28) – This week’s 1-0 loss to the Blue Jackets was the fourth time in six that the Stars have been limited to one goal or fewer. That shouldn’t be possible with this much firepower, but every team goes cold at some point. They get the Golden Knights and the Mammoth this week, which should be fun. They also get the Blues, which should be a Blues game.

3. Carolina Hurricanes (32-15-5, +29) – I loved this breakdown from Jesse Granger, which goes a long way toward answering one of the season’s biggest questions: Who’s this Brandon Bussi guy, and why is he suddenly so good?

2. Tampa Bay Lightning (32-14-4, +46) – Big news in the Other Rankings, where they’ve moved the Lightning into top spot. I can’t argue much, even if they’re still technically a point back of the Red Wings for top spot in the Atlantic. (Tampa has three games in hand.)

1. Colorado Avalanche (35-6-9, +80) – They’ve had three losing streaks since the start of January. Each has only lasted two games, so this isn’t a free-fall. But the Avalanche look like an NHL team again, not one that belongs in some higher super-league. They’ve got the Senators and Canadiens back-to-back this week, and then a home-and-home with Detroit that could be the biggest games between these former rivals in decades.

Also, Pierre LeBrun had an update on Gabriel Landeskog. It sounds like his Olympics are still very much up in the air.

*Goals differential without counting shootout decisions like the NHL does for some reason.

Not ranked: Pittsburgh Penguins – You know, I’m starting to think Sidney Crosby isn’t getting traded at the deadline.

Sure, odds are he never was. But it was fun to pretend, or at least fun if you weren’t a Penguins fan. And it almost felt like the humane thing to wish for, since the only alternative was a brilliant career ending in one of the saddest ways possible. We needed Crosby back in the playoffs, one more time.

Well, get ready, because it sure looks like that playoff appearance is going to happen … in Pittsburgh, which wasn’t supposed to be an option this year.

Maybe we should pump the brakes just a bit, because this is a very weird team. Yesterday’s win over the Canucks was their fourth straight, the third time this year they’ve had a streak at least that long. But they’ve also mixed in an eight-game losing streak back in December, not to mention the stretch of four losses in five games just a few weeks ago. Mirtle has them among the league’s most compelling teams, and you can’t really argue. But in a league where we love to tell teams to pick a lane, the Penguins are just wildly swerving down the middle of the road to the playoffs.

So who gets the credit? Crosby is the obvious candidate, as he’s once again playing Hart-worthy hockey. Evgeni Malkin has been a great story. Dan Muse, a hire that had a few of us scratching our heads, now seems like the perfect choice.

And then there’s our old pal Kyle Dubas. Josh Yohe had a great column over the weekend looking at the various decisions the GM had to make leading up to this season, and the list features a lot more hits than misses. Dubas tends to be a divisive name among fans around the league, and it wasn’t that long ago that the Penguins’ playoff misses were being held up as evidence that he was an overrated fraud. That’s an awfully tough argument to make these days.

If the season ended today, the Penguins wouldn’t just be in the playoffs, they’d hold home ice in the first round. And in a weak Metro, they’d be likely to face a fellow surprise team like the Philadelphia Flyers or New York Islanders in what would be a winnable matchup. In fact, catching the Hurricanes for top spot isn’t completely out of the question, especially with a three-game homestand this week that brings the Blackhawks, Rangers and Senators. That could be three more wins. It probably should be.

Or maybe they yank the steering wheel in the other direction, yet again. I don’t know, and neither do you. It doesn’t feel like we can know much about this team with any certainty. (Except for the part about Crosby not being traded to your favorite team. That’s not happening.)

The bottom five

The five teams headed towards dead last and the best lottery odds for the top pick in this year’s draft.

Scott’s latest draft rankings dropped last week, and Gavin McKenna wasn’t in the top spot. That seems to be the way this is going, although McKenna may have something to say about that down the stretch.

5. Winnipeg Jets (20-24-7, -8) – I went back and forth on whether to include the Jets this week, but Scott Arniel talked me into it.

4. New York Rangers (21-25-6, -25) – The California trip yielded three regulation losses, and the pre-deadline dog days are well and truly here. That home-and-home with the Islanders this week could sting. Meanwhile, I enjoyed Vincent Mercogliano’s look back at the weird path this team has been on over the last eight years, from retool to Presidents’ Trophy and back.

3. St. Louis Blues (19-24-9, -50) – I’m on record doubting the Robert Thomas trade talks will go anywhere. But Jeremy Rutherford and Shayna Goldman took a deeper look into what that deal might look like if it ever happened.

2. Calgary Flames (21-25-6, -24) – Pierre has the scoop on how the Rasmus Andersson trade came together, and who might be next on the block.

1. Vancouver Canucks (17-29-5, -54) – According to Kevin Weekes, Evander Kane might be the next name on the trade block, with the Stars and Avs in the running. Harman Dayal has more on what the return could look like.

Not ranked: San Jose Sharks – Back in the very first rankings of the season, I was wondering about something.

“The big question in the Bottom Five this year: Will any team other than Chicago or San Jose ever get a chance to hold down the one-spot?” The Sharks were holding down the two-spot that day, but they’d move up to number one a week later. Nobody argued, because at 0-3-2, the Sharks were the league’s only winless team. They kept the bottom spot in week three, and it was another obvious pick, because they were 1-5-2 and their season was already over.

Well, about that.

It turns out that slow start was indeed a big story, but not because it was ending the bottom-five race before it began. (In case you’re wondering, three different teams other than San Jose and Chicago have already held down the bottom spot, because I’m dumb.) Instead, it now looks like those three weeks of wheel-spinning could be the only thing keeping a Western playoff spot in play.

Or maybe not. The Sharks have gone 25-16-1 since those first eight games, which is a 100-point pace. That has them in the wild-card mix, but if they can keep accumulating points at that rate in the second half, this isn’t going to be close.

Imagine going back to those early days of the season and telling someone that by late January, the Sharks would have as many wins as the Oilers (in three fewer games). Or that after losing their first six, they’d only lose back-to-back games on three other occasions. Or that they’d be running away with the “most fun to watch” title.

OK, maybe that last one would have made sense. Very often, this league’s young teams are fun teams, because they haven’t had time to have all the creativity and joy beaten out of their game. But it’s supposed to be an empty-calorie sort of fun, where they crank up the entertainment value and then lose 6-5. Making the playoffs? Not so fast. You can have fun, or you can have a postseason spot. You don’t get both.

And sure, there are more than a few important caveats here. There’s a long way to go. Their odds are still well under 50 percent, according to our projections. They’re an unsustainable 11-3 in games that go past regulation, meaning they’re just 15-21 in games settled by real hockey. Their goals differential is worse than teams like the Jets, Senators and Blue Jackets. In terms of expected goals at five-on-five, they’re one of the very worst teams in the league.

Cool, cool. Do you want to know the terrifying truth, or do you want to watch Macklin Celebrini and friends sock some dingers?

Celebrini has been the big story in San Jose, so much so that if they make the playoffs he might follow in the footsteps of names like McDavid and Crosby by winning the MVP in his second season. And deservedly so, because when you look at the Sharks’ stats, they get almost silly. Celebrini has 74 points, which puts him six ahead of second place, which is held by (checks notes) Tyler Toffoli and Alexander Wennberg combined. Huh. Both of those guys are at 34 points on the season, meaning Celebrini leads his own team by 40. There are five teams in the league — the Kraken, Canucks, Blues, Kings and Devils — whose leading scorer doesn’t have 40 points yet. What are we doing here?

Having fun, that’s what. Will it turn into a playoff spot? We should all hope so, because imagine a well-oiled machine like the Avalanche having to go up against a Sharks team that’s apparently too young to realize they’re not supposed to be good. Celebrini vs. MacKinnon in round one? Yes please, hockey gods.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. For now, let’s just enjoy the ride. For Sharks fans, this is the fun year, where the ratio of success to expectations is tilted so far in one direction that there are basically no bad outcomes. Don’t worry, the fun wears off eventually, and you’ll get to be miserable like the rest of us soon enough. But for now, just enjoy it. And save room on the bandwagon, because you’re going to need it.