2019–20 Toronto Maple Leafs season

The 2019–20 Toronto Maple Leafs season was the 103rd season for the National Hockey League franchise that was established on November 22, 1917.

The season was suspended by the league officials on March 12, 2020, after several other professional and collegiate sports organizations followed suit as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 26, the NHL regular season was officially declared over with the remaining games being cancelled. The Maple Leafs advanced to the qualifying round of the playoffs, but lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets, two games to three.

Regular season
The season was generally considered disappointing for the Leafs. In the offseason they were predicted to have a strong season and be a major playoff contender. However, they never really lived up to that promise. At the start of the season, John Tavares was named the 25th captain in the history of the Maple Leafs, filling a position that had been vacant since Dion Phaneuf was traded to the Ottawa Senators in February 2016. Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Morgan Rielly were named alternate captains. The Maple Leafs won their season opener 5–3 against the Ottawa Senators on October 3. Matthews scored two goals, becoming the fourth player in NHL history to score in each of his first four-season openers. Ilya Mikheyev also had a goal and an assist in his NHL debut during the season opener. However, the Leafs would go on to post a disappointing 6-5-3 record for October.

On November 20, following a six-game skid and only two regulation wins in their past 16 games, the Maple Leafs fired head coach Mike Babcock, and replaced him with their AHL affiliation Toronto Marlies head coach Sheldon Keefe. After the coaching change, the team saw some improvement.

On February 22, 2020, the Leafs lost a game to the Carolina Hurricanes while David Ayres, a zamboni driver who worked within the Leafs organization, played goal for the Hurricanes after both Hurricane goalies were injured in said game. It was the first time in NHL history that an emergency backup goaltender recorded a win. Steve Dangle's YouTube video titled "THEY LOST TO A ZAMBONI DRIVER" went viral after the game.

After the NHL was paused in March and resumed in August, the Leafs played the Columbus Blue Jackets in the qualifying round (which was unique to the 2020 NHL Playoffs), and lost the best of 5 series in 5 games.

Regular season

 * 2019–20 schedule
 * 2019–20 schedule

Playoffs
The Maple Leafs were defeated by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the qualifying round in five games.



Goaltenders
(M) Player currently playing for the minor league affiliate Toronto Marlies of the AHL (X) Player is no longer with the Maple Leafs organization (p) Player previously played with another team before being acquired by Toronto

Bold/italics denotes franchise record.

Transactions
The Maple Leafs have been involved in the following transactions during the 2019–20 season.

Draft picks
Below are the Toronto Maple Leafs' selections at the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, which was held on June 21 and 22, 2019, at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Leafs held on to four of their own seven picks (rounds 2, 3, 4, 5). In January 2019 they had traded away their first round pick along with Carl Grundström to Los Angeles for Jake Muzzin. During last year's draft they traded away this year's 6th round draft pick to Buffalo in exchange for the Sabres' 2018 6th round pick. Finally, before their 7th round pick was made they traded it to St. Louis in exchange for the Blues' 7th round pick in 2020. They acquired an additional two picks this year through various trades.