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The Toronto Maple Leafs have been a consistent regular season team for quite some time now, but unfortunately, they just haven’t been able to get it done when it matters in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That’s not for a lack of trying however, as the team have made several moves every single year, with one of the biggest in recent times being the addition of then Blues forward Ryan O’Reilly.

The Ontario native would play just 13 games with the team before flaming out in the playoffs, and now over a year removed from leaving the team, he’s made a shocking statement about the group he once called teammates.

”I was talking to someone who knows Ryan O’Reilly very well, and he had talked about his time in Toronto and was like, ‘certain people on this Toronto team will never win, and I don’t want to be here anymore’. And he’s not saying that about the people in [Nashville’s] locker room right now.”

That comes from Dan Powers of the Empty Netters Podcast, who is quoting O’Reilly from someone close to him, and if this is true, it’s truly hard to argue given how they perform when the lights are on brightest year after year.

The team made some major upgrades to their blue line this summer, so there’s a chance they may take a step forward in 2024/25, and with Auston Matthews expected to take the captaincy after John Tavares vacated the role, this may be as good a chance as any for the team to do damage in the postseason.