Toronto Maple Leafs odds plummet after head coach fired

The Toronto Maple Leafs should have been in contention for a Stanley Cup appearance this season, but things haven’t gone exactly as planned. The NHL team is coming off a six-game losing streak with no clear guidance in sight and no vision of how to turn things around, and now head coach Mike Babcock is now polishing his resume.

The odds of the squad making it to the playoffs have fallen from +1200 to +1500 across the winless streak before dropping even further to +2000, and the team has done the only thing it believes will bolster the freefall.

Babcock joined the Maple Leafs in 2015 on a massive eight-year contract worth $50 million. Things haven’t picked up under his tenure, with the last playoff win for the team coming back in 2004. This season, they’re 9-10-4 and are in tenth place in the Eastern Conference. They’re also 24th in the league on goals-against per game with 3.43 and 27th on the penalty kill.

It isn’t all Babcock’s fault, though. Kyle Dubas, Toronto’s GM, wanted to put some strength up front and used half of the team’s salary cap, $40.75 million, to buy four forwards – Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares. This put the team in a precarious position with virtually no real defense and no top-tier talent in the net.