The Leafs remain the top team in the Atlantic Division with a solid 27–16–2 record, however the team has also lost their last three games: a 6–3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes last Thursday, a 3–0 shutout loss against the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday, and a 4–1 loss to the Dallas Stars last night. The team is playing terribly, no question about it.
But they’ve been generally good this year, you don’t lead the Atlantic without playing well. What hasn’t been good, though, is the power play.
Don’t get me wrong, their play with the man advantage is not as depressing as it was back in October when the team sat second last in the league in power play percentage with an abysmal 8.8% efficiency, but the Leafs have still been far from their former selves. Since the new year began, Toronto have been rather unimpressive, sitting at 18th in the league with a power-play efficiency of just 21.4%—better than October, but still not even in the top half of the NHL.
With all the offensive weapons the Leafs possess—mainly the ‘Core Four’ of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander—their power play deficiencies are far less understandable. But, there are reasons for their difficulties and ways that they can improve as the second half of the 2024–25 season goes on.
Shooters don’t shoot
While it’s not solely related to the power play, Matthews and Nylander have seen a decrease in their shots taken. Back in the 2023–24 season, Matthews took 25 shots through his first five games in the month of January. To start the new year this time around, Matthews has put up just 13 shots through five games. Nylander hasn’t been much better either, putting up just 10 shots in his first five games of the month this season, compared to 25 shots through his first five games last January.
Power play units are at their most effective when the opposing goalie and players have to work harder, but when two of your top guys are failing to even get shots off on the man advantage at times, it is no wonder the Leafs are struggling. And to make matters worse, when Matthews is able to get a shot off, he just isn’t converting at a high enough click, with his shooting percentage currently at 12.3% on the season compared to 18.7% in 2023–24.
Matthews’ one-timer downgrade
Continuing with Matthews, he hasn’t been the same this season in many ways—his nagging upper-body injury that’s caused in to miss 15 games this season being a big contributor—but his slap shot/one-timer opportunities and finishing have had a big impact on his power play performance.
The one-timer is a very effective move on the man advantage, as with the extra attacker, a quick pass can often leave a man open with a much clearer clapper on net with less traffic. Last season, Matthews used this to his advantage, burying seven slap-shots while at 5v4. This season, Matthews has been far less effective in this regard, having just one power-play slap shot thus far, which is also his only slap-shot goal as well. If Matthews is unable to improve this as the season progresses, it will be to the detriment of the power play unit.
Shaking up the units
All these reasons are valid, but at the end of the day, having the right guys on at the right time may be the biggest reason of all for the Leafs’ power play deficiencies. Toronto’s top power play unit is absolutely stacked with Tavares, Matthews, Nylander, Marner and then either Matthew Knies or Morgan Rielly as the fifth man. When you shift to the second unit, however, we usually get a group consisting of Bobby McMann, Max Domi, Nick Robertson, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and either Rielly or Knies, clearly a fairly big drop-off in talent when compared to the top unit.
This drop-off can also be seen through the season stats. The team has 26 power-play goals so far in 2024–25, and 23 of those have been scored by the ‘Core Four’, all members of the first unit. Robertson, Domi and Ekman-Larsson have been scoreless on the man advantage, with McMann being the only concrete member of the second unit to find the back of the net with just a single power play goal.
The numbers of even the top unit are nothing to write home about, but if the team hopes to have better luck, a shuffling of the units by coach Craig Berube may be needed to better disperse the scoring output. Moving Nylander down to the second unit every now and then is cool and all, but real change must take place for greater scoring opportunities throughout the entirety of the power play.
Simply put, the Leafs have too much offensive talent to be struggling this much when on the man advantage. We know they can be better, as the team had the seventh-best power-play percentage in the league last season, but they must make the changes necessary and just simply be more effective.
