The goaltending is much improved. The roster is stronger and deeper. There are more pieces on defence than ever before. The coaching is supposed to be supplying a new style and a harder way to play.
So how is it that one month into Brad Treliving’s second season as general manager in Toronto and Craig Berube’s first season as coach that so much about the Maple Leafs seems to be in tatters?
The Leafs lost two games on the weekend to two teams that didn’t make the playoffs a year ago. They scored three times in those two defeats. That is concerning.
That comes after losing two games the week before to two teams that didn’t make the playoffs last year and probably won’t make the playoffs this year. They scored four goals in those two defeats.
The signature win of the season at home — a 5-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning — is really not a signature win at all when you look at it closely. They scored four goals on 14 shots on a leaky Andrei Vasilevskiy. Three of them should have been stopped.
The truth is the Leafs aren’t scoring much, which is hard to comprehend when you consider they have four of the top 12 salaried players in the NHL and the reason those men are being paid that kind of money is because, frankly, they historically generate offence.
Early on, much has been made of the rather-horrible Leafs power play, but not enough seemingly has been done to make it better.
The Leafs are running a 10% power play — that is an embarrassing number. That ranks 31st in the NHL and the only reason it isn’t last is because the Buffalo Sabres are that bad.
The 10% is the kind of number that gets a coach fired, not hired. That’s on Berube and that’s on his chosen power-play specialist Marc Savard, who last year operated he 26th-best power play in Calgary.
Over the previous eight seasons, after Mitch Marner, Matthews and Nylander all joined the Leafs, along with Tavares one year later, Toronto cumulatively has had the third-best power play in hockey at just below 25%.
Behind Edmonton with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Behind Tampa with Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman. That’s where they should be.
By osmosis alone, the power play has to improve. But the question worth asking early on is: Why has it been this dreadful?
How much of it is players? How much of it is style? How much of it is coaching? How much of it is just bad luck.
From the day he walked into the NHL, Matthews has been the best goal scorer in hockey. Only Mike Bossy and Mario Lemieux ever have scored more often than Matthews does. That is company for the ages.
But not this year so far. Matthews is scoring at 31-goal pace. That coming after he scored 69 last season. His entire career has been played at 54-goal pace.
So why isn’t he scoring now? Is it because he’s suddenly the captain and he’s feeling a certain kind of pressure he never has felt before? Is it because Berube wants him to a complete 200-foot player — which he was, by the way, in his 69-goal year and the years before that.
Or is all this just circumstantial and any day now Matthews will return to scoring the way only he has scored. But so far this season, he’s missing opportunities, he’s fanning on shots, he’s shooting wide or high. Is all that just the beginning of a new season, the altering styles of a new coach, or is it the unlikely performance of the the weight of wearing a ‘C’ on his jersey?
Matthews is historically confident. He knows what he can do and he knows he does it better than anyone else in hockey. He’s not the kind of player to wilt under any kind of regular-season pressure. He’s too sure of himself for that.
But it’s not happening for him right now and that’s part of an entire Maple Leafs team trying to find its way.
The Leafs play arch-rival Boston Bruins on Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena. The Bruins have not had a good start to the season. There already have been rumours about a coaching change and some controversy with the benching of star player David Pastrnak. There are concerns about their roster, really for the first time in a long time.
And here’s the thing: After 13 games, the desperate Bruins have 14 points. After 13 games, the not necessarily desperate Leafs have 14 points.
This is the most complete roster the Leafs have had in years. What they have on paper and in payroll means little without better performance. That has to start on Tuesday night.
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