You could hear the grumbling from Toronto Maple Leafs fans across the country, with some of it blasting out over social media as soon as their game ended Saturday.

"Uh oh," they said. "We won."

In what has become the Year of the Tank in the NHL, wins have been hard to come by for the Leafs in the second half. When they beat Ottawa 4-3 in overtime over the weekend, it was only their sixth 'W' in the past 34 games, a lengthy span of futility that is rare in this era of extreme parity.

Only it hasn't been that unusual this year.

Since things went off the rails for the Leafs, beginning with a mid-January road trip through California, they've had company in the collapse department. Toronto has a league-worst 15 points in its past 34 games (6-25-3), but Buffalo has only 17 (6-23-5) and Arizona has 18 (7-23-4).

Every other team has managed at least 30 points over that stretch.

Six or seven wins in 34 games is so rare that these limps to the finish will be remembered as three of the longest, most pronounced slides in the NHL's three-point-game era.

With Connor McDavid up for grabs, these teams pulled their rosters apart to varying degrees before the trade deadline. The players and coaches involved weren't trying to lose, but management – and much of the fan base – clearly had an eye on the future.

That resulted in a black eye for the league last week in Buffalo when the home crowd was rooting for the Coyotes in what became a 4-3 overtime loss for the Sabres.

"You have your home fans cheering against you," Sabres defenceman Mike Weber lamented after a demoralizing loss to the Coyotes. "This is a whole new low right now."

Leafs fans shouldn't fret too much about what comes the rest of the way. Even with the win on Saturday, Toronto looks locked into their spot in fourth last heading into the draft lottery: According to sportsclubstats.com, there's an 85-per-cent chance that's where they'll finish, with six games to play.

There also remains the possibility that Edmonton creeps past them, which would drop the Leafs to third last and increase their chances of winning the lottery to 11.5 per cent.