Leafs must figure out why power play fades away each postseason
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Why can’t the Toronto Maple Leafs win in the playoffs? This deep into the run of futility, there are endless theories.
For a decade now, the Maple Leafs have been reliably two things: regular season outperformers, and playoff underperformers. It’s as maddening a mix as you can find.
They’ve overhauled the front office. They’ve fired coaching staffs. At this point, there’s nothing left to do but turn attention to the core of the lineup.
Auston Matthews is one of the best hockey players on Earth, but his goal scoring seems to dry up every spring. If Matthews’ scoring drawdown is of concern, Mitch Marner’s is at DEFCON 1. Morgan Rielly can be a mistake factory in critical situations against pressure. John Tavares turns 35-years-old in September. And William Nylander, perhaps the only Maple Leafs player who has improved his postseason reputation over time, has a fresh $92-million dollar contract consuming more than 12 per cent of the salary cap next year.
It’s a mess.
But the calls to blow up the lineup because of postseason futility are met with a reasonable counterargument: It’s difficult to put a team into the second round of the playoffs every single year, and if Toronto does start offloading talent from the top of their lineup, how exactly do they improve next season?
Barring full capitulation and a total organizational rebuild, most roster changes would likely drive this team backwards. The depth of Toronto’s lineup has been woeful at times, especially this season. But Toronto’s big guns routinely underperform in a way you don’t see from other elite talent around the NHL. The relative advantage of the big positive goal differentials they create in the regular season disappears, placing more burden on the rest of the lineup.
At an individual level, some of the biggest declines in playoff rate-scoring over the past decade come from Toronto:
In a sport where goal differentials decide outcomes, improvement on the defensive side of the ice can offset this sort of scoring slowdown. Toronto was undeniably better defensively this year – they were the third toughest team to score on at even strength (2.0 goals against per 60), and ninth in all situations (2.8 goals against per 60).
What remains an enigma, however, is where their power play goes come playoff time. As reliable as the sun rising and setting, Toronto’s power play – routinely one of the most electric units in the league year-over-year – looks punchless and ineffective in the postseason, despite having the same advanced weaponry that other teams fawn over.
Since Matthews’s rookie season, Toronto has the league’s third-ranked power play. But look at their regular season versus postseason performance (left table), and then look at the production drawdown they’ve experienced relative to every other team in the league (right table):
One of the most misunderstood parts of modern era hockey is a belief the playoffs are a low-scoring grind. Power plays in the playoffs over this same time period have been 3 per cent more proficient at scoring versus the regular season, likely owing in large part to the attacking talent you typically find left in the playoffs. Whereas the league gains, on net, 3 per cent, Toronto sees a 28 per cent decline. Enough said. (Also, not great Carolina!)
Last summer, I wrote an article outlining how crucial power-play production has become. It’s correlation with a team’s win-loss record has never been stronger, as offence has broadly become a real differentiator of haves and have-nots.
Whatever Toronto ends up doing this summer (and there are no shortage of options), I think there needs to be critical focus on the man advantage.
Structure, personnel, tactics – all of it needs to be studied and understood. Teams held scoreless on power plays this postseason have won just 34 per cent of their games, and that number is not going to change.
The Toronto power play had two goals over seven games against the Florida Panthers in round two, and was held scoreless in games four through seven.
Not good enough, to say the least.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference