Sputtering power play limits Leafs’ ceiling
Published
Toronto, we may have a problem.
Craig Berube’s first month behind the Maple Leafs bench has been a mixed bag of results. The team is off to a bit of a sleepy start (4-4-1 with a -2 goal differential) in October, but it’s nothing that has set them back in the longer-term playoff race. The entire Atlantic Division has spent the first month trading wins and losses — even the defending champion Florida Panthers (6-3-1) have a goal differential of zero through Sunday.
Toronto’s lineup, which has seen a notable acceleration of changes in the post-Kyle Dubas era, is still holding up well at even strength. If you are looking for a glass-half-full assessment of where things are in Toronto, these numbers are strong early, even with considerable changes further down the depth chart:
That is very encouraging advantage play and the type of even-strength production that can drive a team into the postseason. That’s the good news.
The bad news? The primary reason Toronto is running on the treadmill of mediocrity in the standings right now is a wholly ineffective power play. And the issue isn’t isolated to just a run of poor puck luck in October. It’s a carry-over problem from a season ago, and one that truly limits their ceiling as a team.
It’s difficult for me, and probably everyone in the Maple Leafs organization for that matter, to understand what broke down with this unit. For years, Toronto’s man advantage was one of the scariest weapons in the league, owing in large part to the shooting capabilities of Auston Matthews. Surrounding Matthews with true offensive playmakers like winger Mitch Marner, and backstopping that unit with a defensive puck mover in Morgan Rielly, spread defensive structures thin.
But that’s no longer the case, and hasn’t been for some time. Only three forwards — Matthews, John Tavares, and William Nylander — have a goal there this season. And if you trend Toronto’s power-play production all the way back from Matthews’s rookie season, you can see how sharply scoring has fallen:
Power play and penalty kill success rates, especially across smaller samples, are always ripe for volatility. Goaltending has a dramatic effect on performance in both directions. And we shouldn’t discount that Toronto may have a bit of poor puck luck right now. After all, Toronto went through a similarly horrendous slump during the 2020-21 season, and were able to pull themselves out of it in short order.
But if a team that has reliably scored about nine goals per 60 minutes up a man for nearly a decade has rerated to half that level of production, or worse, it’s a real problem.
For years, this was Toronto’s differentiator — not elite goaltending, not an unbreakable penalty kill, not even a lineup that dominates possession and dictates the pace of play 5-on-5. If the power play has meaningfully regressed, Toronto just isn’t the same scary opponent – even in the regular season.
Toronto’s saving grace, of course, is they have the best goal scorer in the world on their first unit. And even the peak Alexander Ovechkin era in Washington, perhaps the best player comparison for Matthews these days, had slumps over the course of the season.
And even beyond Matthews, the personnel has mostly stayed the same – Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Matthew Knies are newer features to Toronto’s power play structure, but by and large it’s the same group of skill players we have watched anchor the Leafs’ man advantage for years.
The goal is to make this a temporary slump, and not the new normal. For Berube and his assistants, resurrecting this once-famed power play from the dead is an early-season test.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference