Despite loss, Maple Leafs steadied by return of Laughton’s quiet leadership

TORONTO — It’s been six months since Scott Laughton has had the chance to do what he did Thursday night. Six months since the 31-year-old has been granted an opportunity to lace up his skates, hop over the boards into the glow of the Scotiabank Arena lights, and play meaningful minutes for his Toronto Maple Leafs.

The road back to the blue-and-white’s lineup has been tumultuous. After a rollercoaster late-season spell with the club following his arrival at the 2025 trade deadline, the thinking was Laughton could head into the new season more settled, more a part of this group. A pre-season injury upended those plans, sidelining the Oakville, Ont., product for the first 13 games of the year. 

He returned in early November, against Utah, easing himself back into the mix in his season debut. One game later, it all came crashing down again, Laughton knocked out of a tilt with the Boston Bruins with yet another injury.

Five more games on the shelf came and went. But Thursday night, No. 24 finally got his moment, drawing back into the lineup as a steadying presence for the Maple Leafs’ injury-ravaged forward corps, helping them earn a much-needed point in the process.

“He was fantastic,” John Tavares said of his fellow centreman after the dust settled on a 3-2 overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. “You know, I feel for him — I thought he came into the year looking great. Great camp, the way he prepared. It’s been a tough go. But he’s just put his head down. He’s a tremendous guy in the locker room, and a hell of a player.”

The former Philadelphia Flyer’s blue-collar approach was noticeable on a night that saw Toronto pull out one of their better efforts in what’s been an overall disappointing campaign. Logging 17 minutes of ice, Laughton showed the type of veteran poise Toronto was hoping to see when he joined the club late last season. He spurred his line on throughout the tilt, hemming Columbus in their own zone more than a few times. He led the club through a pivotal penalty kill late in the game with the score still even, a point still on the table. And he finished the evening with four shots on the Jackets’ cage, third-most of anyone in a Leafs sweater.

“I thought he was really good tonight,” head coach Craig Berube said of his veteran. “A lot of energy, skated well, killed penalties, created some offence. He just brings that tenacity every shift — with work.”

It’s a crucial development for these Leafs. Results aside, it’s the way Toronto has played through the first quarter of the campaign that’s had the Maple Leafs faithful pulling their hair out — the club has looked disconnected and disorganized, often getting outworked by the opposition. 

On this night, they looked steady, if still thin in the depth department with Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies, Nicolas Roy, Chris Tanev and Brandon Carlo all still out of the lineup. Laughton’s return was no small part of the better showing.

“I thought we had good energy,” he said from the Maple Leafs locker room late Thursday. “They’re a really good rush team, especially their top six. They make it hard on you. … I thought we did a pretty good job, Woller made some big saves at key times. We take it to OT and they get the extra. 

“You’ve got to keep building on it. You can’t get negative or down in this situation — you continue to roll, you continue to go, and keep playing together. Good things are going to happen if we continue to manage the puck, and make it hard on teams to come out of the zone.”

While the night will finish as a return to the loss column, the details say this was a sign of progress from these Maple Leafs. And it was a late sequence from Laughton that allowed Toronto to leave this one with at least one point to build off.

The moment came late in the third. The score was knotted up at 2-2, Toronto having clawed back from a two-goal deficit over the previous period-and-a-half. With nine minutes left in the tilt, the club’s old ghosts came back to haunt them — a too-many-men penalty sent Columbus to the power play with a chance to put the game away in regulation.

But the Maple Leafs dug in and held their ground. Joseph Woll came up with some crucial saves to keep the Jackets’ man-advantage off the board. In the final seconds of the kill, the puck came to Ivan Provorov at the point, with acres of space around him. The Russian rearguard loaded up and let loose, only to see his old Flyers teammate Laughton drop to a knee and sacrifice his body for a painful block.

Power-play chance nullified. Score preserved.

Asked post-game if he second-guessed blocking that one given his recent injury issues, Laughton smiled.

“No. That’s part of the job. That’s what I’m paid to do,” he said. “We have a lot of guys who would do the same thing. You get your body in front of it and help Woller the best you can.”

“He does so many things in little areas,” Tavares said of the veteran pivot. “Great on the PK, great in the faceoff circle, really heady, really smart, understands the game. A huge block late in the game there as well, sacrificing himself. He’s a big part of our team, and we’re happy to have him back.”

Laughton’s return had an added impact on Tavares’s own night, too, Berube pointing out that the bolstered centre depth meant the team didn’t have to lean on Tavares for 23 minutes a night again, like they did last time out, or send No. 91 into the toughest defensive matchups.

But beyond the blocks or the o-zone shifts or the affected matchups, it’s Laughton’s quiet leadership that seemed to have the biggest impact on this group. His unwavering approach, shift to shift — honed by weeks watching from the press box as his club’s campaign slowly went off the rails.

“You want to be out there,” he said of the difficult injury spell. “You want to be battling with the guys. You feel helpless. I’ll tell you, I was pretty excited this morning to get back at it. It’s been a long time coming. Yeah, it sucks we lost, but we keep rolling. I’ve been in this situation many times back in Philly. You string together a couple and you get some momentum and you continue to go. The parity in the league, it’s so tight. So you can’t wear on yourselves. You keep a positive mindset. We’re all in this together. We’ve got a veteran group here. So, I think this is good for us.

“Sometimes it feels like the world’s falling on you, and things aren’t always going to go your way. But the adversity, it’s going to make you better down the stretch. Sixty or so games left — there’s a lot of runway. You get that urgency in your game, you start playing the right way, good things are going to happen with the talent on this team. … The sun comes up tomorrow and we’ll get after it, and go to Montreal for a big game.”