It would be premature to push the panic button right now in Toronto, but the Maple Leafs have a problem in the offensive zone right now – a new wrinkle for this organization, and a foreign concept in the Auston Matthews era.
The loss of a player of Mitch Marner’s calibre without an equitable replacement was always going to sting, but Toronto’s inability to create the same degree of dangerous offence in the second year of Craig Berube’s tenure is starting to concern. While the team is still ninth in 5-on-5 rate-scoring (2.8 goals per-60 minutes), they’re 28th in expected goals (2.3 expected goals per-60 minutes), relying on an elevated team shooting percentage. Notably, this is not just a depth issue – Toronto’s first line has seen meaningful deterioration in their ability to create scoring chances, and superstar forward Auston Matthews is at the epicentre. For an ordinary team, these splits may be fine; for a team that’s been chasing a Stanley Cup for years on the laurels of their offensive pedigree, it’s not.
Matthews has found the stat sheet aplenty, but it’s a lot of empty calorie scoring (i.e. empty netters). At 5-on-5, Matthews has looked off, and it’s why we have seen a lot of early season tinkering from Berube when it comes to deployment. Matthew Knies has been a regular fixture, but Easton Cowan, William Nylander, Matias Maccelli and Bobby McMann have all been part of the right wing experiment. It’s the right approach – players the calibre of Matthews (especially at his age) rarely slump like this without extenuating circumstances, and finding the right skill balance is an important mission.
Perhaps it’s an early season slump, perhaps it’s a continuation of some slippage we saw from his injury-riddled 2024-25 campaign. Whatever the case, Matthews’ individual volume is down, and the team’s on-ice results – historically reliant on Matthews’ firepower – has also declined:
When looking at Toronto’s on-ice shot profile with Matthews on the ice, there’s something more notable than just the volume decline, and that’s where shots are coming from. This isn’t just the byproduct of Matthews but the inputs of all five skaters on the ice; that includes defencemen leading the transition, wingers attacking from the walls into the low-slot areas, and the unit’s general ability to sustain offensive zone time. But compare the shot profiles from Matthews’ legendary 69-goal season in 2023-24 (also predating last year’s injuries) to his profile this season. There’s a stark difference, heat maps via HockeyViz:
No one should discount the impact Marner’s loss has had on the team’s first line. For whatever Marner’s failings, he was one of the league’s deadliest playmakers and he has brought that same offensive flair to Vegas in his first season there. Whether the talent decline on Matthews’ wing has been too sharp or Matthews is simply no longer the shooter he once was will be hotly debated for as long as this scoring slump continues.
There’s another wrinkle to this, and that’s those meaningful off-puck minutes. When the Maple Leafs are most dangerous, they are creating and sustaining significant offensive zone pressure. Couple those minutes with a shooter the talent of Matthews, and you can find an awful lot of goals. The opposite is also true. If a player like Matthews is spending an inordinate amount of time trying to win the puck or protecting his own net because of the team’s inability to play a possession game, that robs meaningful offensive opportunities. And one jarring statistic that stands out to me is the shot volume against with Matthews on the ice this season versus years past:
I’m not ready to write off Matthews or the Maple Leafs after 10 per cent of the regular season, but this has undoubtedly been a slow start in a pivotal season. The team doesn’t play with the same pace we have grown accustomed to and spends heaps of time defending the run of play. And for the first time in eons, Toronto just doesn’t seem like a scary team on the attack. For a team that’s prided itself in perennial Stanley Cup aspirations, it’s hard to watch Toronto relative to other teams around the league and believe in them this season.
If they’re going to make a run of it in 2025-26, the fix has to start with the team’s top line and the team’s best player. Otherwise, the Maple Leafs are at real risk of running the treadmill of mediocrity until Game 82.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey
