Nine games.
That’s all it’s taken this season for some troubling signs to emerge for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The heady optimism that was there in the first week has quickly faded amid a 1-3-1 stretch in which they’ve played some of their worst hockey in the past few seasons.
Maybe it’s a blip, but we’ve seen this before from this team.
The Leafs are now 4-4-1 on the season, an 82-point pace that is tied for the ninth-worst record in the NHL. They’re not really scoring (21st in goals per game) and only goaltender Anthony Stolarz is saving them in the goals-against department, as Toronto sits 26th in expected goals against.
Borrowing a page from our friend Shayna G., we’re going to fire up an early edition of the Concern-o-Meter and go through the most concerning issues in Toronto.
We’ll score them from 1 to 10, with 1 being “Nothing to see here” and 10 being “Time to light our hair (and jerseys) on fire.”
Auston Matthews isn’t filling the net
Until late in Saturday’s frustrating loss in Boston, there was grumbling from the Leafs faithful about a lot of things, including the fact Matthews had only three goals this year, despite plenty of chances, and hadn’t been able to convert at the rate he did last season in putting up an incredible 69 goals.
Then Matthews made a terrific play to tie the game late, earning the Leafs a point they didn’t deserve on another lackluster night.
Matthews now has four goals and seven points through nine games, which are both well off his standard production. But he leads the NHL in shots on goal and his shooting percentage is half what it was last season. And part of what’s depressing his totals is the mess on the man advantage, which we’ll get to.
Level of concern: 2.5 out of 10. The Leafs captain is going to be OK.
No one else is filling the net
With Matthews and the first line on the ice, the Leafs are producing around 4.06 expected goals per 60 minutes at five-on-five, one of the better marks for a player (and top line) in the league.
Without Matthews on the ice, they’re producing 2.36 per 60, which ranks near the league basement.
Yes, we know the Leafs are a top-heavy team, what with so much salary committed to four forwards. But that they have 11 even-strength goals from Matthews, William Nylander and Matthew Knies and only nine from all of their other forwards should be setting off alarm bells.
Special teams are hurting them, but the Leafs look like a one-line team at even strength lately. The Bobby McMann, Max Domi and Nylander line, in particular, has been beaten up defensively the past five games and hasn’t shown enough offense to justify keeping them together.
Level of concern: 7 out of 10. They really need more offense from the Nick Robertson types down the lineup.
The power play is awful — again
New coach Craig Berube is preaching patience based on the number of chances they are generating. And he’s been reluctant to significantly change the mix in terms of who is on PP1, other than swapping the defensemen around.
But it’s not as if the Leafs are generating enough quality looks and simply being goalied or are unlucky here. They’re 17th in shots attempted and 13th in expected goals on the man advantage right now.
Meanwhile, their faceoff ace, John Tavares, is winning only 44 percent of his draws on PP1, which means more than half the time the Leafs have to chase the puck back to their own end and regroup (which, we should note, they are also not good at).
The most alarming thing about the Leafs’ power-play issues is how longstanding they are. The Core Four on PP1 has been awful now going back to February. In fact, including the playoffs, the Leafs have scored just 13 power-play goals on their last 125 opportunities, a conversion rate of just 10.4 percent over 41 games which ranks dead last in the NHL.
That’s a half-season of futility where they’ve scored less than one PP goal every three games.
Level of concern: 9 out of 10. It’s time to try something new.
They don’t have a true No. 1 goalie
Well … maybe they actually do?
Frankly, even with Joseph Woll’s injury, goaltending is the least of the Leafs’ concerns right now. Stolarz has been one of the best goalies in the NHL early on, posting a goals saved above expected mark that ranks third behind only Jake Oettinger and Lukáš Dostál.
The Leafs need to be careful not to overwork him, and they’ll need more from Woll as the season goes on, but this isn’t what’s ailing them after nine games.
Level of concern: 2 out of 10. Stolarz is probably their MVP so far.
They don’t have a true No. 1 defenseman
There was understandably a lot of fanfare over the Leafs’ revamped blue line, especially after they started well in their first few games. But the back end has been leaky during their recent slide, with the third pairing of Simon Benoit and either Conor Timmins or Philippe Myers struggling, in particular.
One curious thing is Berube is playing Oliver Ekman-Larsson as his No. 1 defenseman, giving him the highest workload on the team (21:44 per game) and using him against top competition.
OEL has certainly exceeded expectations so far, but his underlying numbers are coming back down quickly under the strain of this new workload. The Florida Panthers used the 33-year-old as their No. 5 defenseman for most of last season, giving him about 18 minutes a game and sheltered minutes, which ended up being a key part of their run to a championship.
The Leafs need to be careful not to overtax him here. The only question is: Who else should be getting those minutes, given Chris Tanev’s age and Morgan Rielly’s defensive limitations?
Level of concern: 7 out of 10. He’s not going to be the answer higher in the lineup, but Timothy Liljegren should be getting some of those troubling depth minutes right now.
Berube’s system is a work in progress
Nine games isn’t enough to transform a team’s playing style, we’ll give you that. But the question in Toronto this season wasn’t if a change behind the bench was needed. It was: Could something this different work with a pretty similar, skilled roster?
Or, in other words, does Berube have the personnel needed here to win the way he wants to?
It’s going to be interesting to see how Berube handles his team’s struggles this coming week, especially in light of some key mistakes from Nylander, Mitch Marner and Matthews. Does he shift into disciplinarian mode this early or wait it out? What other buttons can he push?
Level of concern: 5 out of 10. We’ll chalk this one up to it being early. For now.
The Leafs might just still be the Leafs
More than anything else, this is my biggest concern with this team right now.
They changed the mix on the blue line, bringing in two new veterans to play big minutes, and that should be at minimum a slight upgrade over last season’s mess. They also have help in goal, if Stolarz can play this well over a longer stretch.
But almost everything else is very similar, and it was clear at points last season that this group had become very stale.
The biggest danger with running it back over and over is you get the same result. We’re in Year 7 of the Core Four experiment (Core Five if you include Rielly), so it’s not as if we don’t have plenty of evidence of how it’ll look night to night. Especially in the games that matter most.
Maybe it’s a good thing these new-look Leafs look like the old Leafs right now, as it’ll give management time to contemplate some bigger changes earlier in the season.
They have reinforcements coming — with Jani Hakanpää, Connor Dewar and Calle Järnkrok starting to get healthy — and cap considerations to work around, so a shakeup is coming. It sure looks needed.
Level of concern: 8.5 out of 10.
(Photos: Winslow Townson / Imagn Images)
