Laughton Gets His Moment as Maple Leafs End Regular Season with Comeback Win

TORONTO — And exhale.

The Toronto Maple Leafs’ 2024-25 regular season has officially wrapped, and now, only the Stanley Cup Playoffs await. And really, for a meaningless Thursday-night tilt against a middling opponent, a Game 82 where the central goal was simply to get to the end of the evening without adding any more injuries to the pile, you couldn’t have drawn it up much better.

“Definitely weird,” veteran defender Chris Tanev said from the locker room after the final buzzer had sounded. “You’re just trying to feel it out. You see what happened to Dallas last night, [Jason] Robertson got hurt, and you obviously don’t want any of your key guys to get hurt.”

The Maple Leafs certainly looked like they were playing to avoid injury for long stretches of this closing-time meeting with the Detroit Red Wings. By the end of the second period, the home side found themselves losing 3-1, the Wings outshooting them 27-12, a Justin Holl revenge game percolating.

But fresh off a run that had seen Toronto win four straight games — and eight of their past nine — the Maple Leafs decided to avoid ending their division-title-clinching season on a sour note. So, they turned it on for the final 20, scoring an early third-period stunner, a final-second equalizer, and an overtime winner to take this thing before the final buzzer. Curtains.

And who else to get the winner in the final game of the regular season than the one man in a Maple Leafs sweater who might’ve needed it most — trade-deadline acquisition Scott Laughton, whose struggles since joining his boyhood club have been well-documented and much-discussed.

“It was nice,” Laughton said of his clincher after the dust had settled on the 4-3 Maple Leafs win. “To get out in overtime and end the season on a high note, it’s big. … We found a way.”

Though the confidence boost was surely appreciated on Laughton’s end, in his coach’s eyes, it wasn’t necessarily needed. He’d already seen progress from the Oakville, Ont. product before he corralled a puck off the end-boards, shifted it to his forehand, and wired it past Cam Talbot.