Toronto Maple Leafs Power-Play Woes Are Very Concerning

The Toronto Maple Leafs are among the best teams in the entire NHL, however, their power-play has been among the worst in the entire NHL for about the last month.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have managed to put together a pretty impressive record recently despite their power-play woes, but any time you score just once in over 40 tries, it is going to be concerning.

Their power-play was generating a goal at over 40% of the time in the month of January, and has been a team strength up to the point where its ability to score suddenly disappeared.

The Leafs have struggled on the man advantage mightily and it has cost them a handful of games that they were capable of winning.

Their Hot Start

The Leafs power play obviously was never likely to maintain the pace it started the season at,  but then again it’s the Maple Leafs and with that much talent on the team, you never really know. Re

During the month of January, (10 games) they went 13/30 (43.0%) and scored a goal on the man advantage in every game they played in that month except for one when they lost to the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 on January 20th. (Stats from Hockey-Reference.com)

Power-Play Gone Cold

The power-play has taken a massive decline in production since February 11th against the Winnipeg Jets when they went 0/1 on the man advantage. From February 11th until their recent game against the Jets on April 15th, they have gone 1/42 (2%) and have gotten outscored while on the power-play 3-1 as they’ve allowed three short-handed goals while being a man up.

Being 1/42 on your last 42 attempts is really concerning to me as well as other Maple Leaf fans because of how stacked this team is offensively, especially on the power-play.

The power-play has seen a lot of different combinations over the last two months and it seems like nothing can get the job done for them as their only goal has come from none other than Auston Matthews off a rebound against Calgary on April 5th.

What Should the Power-Play Look Like?

Here are how I think the units should look like going forward… however, I have no say obviously so it’s up to Manny Malhotra and Sheldon Keefe to hopefully see this vision too.

Power-Play unit 1:                    Nylander

                                 Matthews – Tavares – Marner 

                                                           Rielly 

Unit one is the exact same unit we saw last season by stacking the top unit with the big four and Morgan Rielly. Have Nylander as the net-front where he led the league in goals from last season and put Tavares back in the bumper spot in the slot.

Have Matthews and Marner on opposite sides as seasons prior and they can even change sides too during play. Lastly, have Rielly at the point, there’s no explaining there.

Power-Play unit 2:                    Simmonds

                                          Spezza – Hyman – Galchenyuk 

                                                            Brodie

Unit two is a mix of the current two units we are seeing this season for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Have Simmonds as the net-front on this second unit as he’s proven throughout his career he can score from in front of the net on the power-play. Have Hyman in the bumper spot or you can even swap Hyman and Simmonds with each other as both players can play net-front too.

Have Spezza and Galchenyuk on opposite sides on their one-timer spots, and have Brodie, for now, at the point. Although whenever Sandin gets a shot with the Maple Leafs again, he is taking that spot on the second power-play unit without a doubt.

The bottom line here is that the Leafs cannot continue to be terrible on the power-play and they should look at some new combos to try and jumpstart some goals.