3 Things to Worry About the Toronto Maple Leafs Heading Into the Playoff Run
By Edward Eng
Power Outage in the Leafs Power Play … Again
For the past few seasons, the Leafs have always fielded one of the best power plays in the league.
After all, with a monstrous first unit loaded with the core four of Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander, while quarterbacked by the highly-talented Morgan Rielly, it is highly expected already that they would do exceptionally well with all that firepower.
Not to mention with the added incumbents of Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi and Bobby McMann, even the secondary unit can be tantalizing.
However, at just about the same time this year as in previous years, their power play always seem to suffer a power outage prior to the start of the playoffs.
For this season, the Leafs power play had been toiling with only a 9.1% success rate since the beginning of March, trailing only the lowly Anaheim Ducks and Montreal Canadiens for the third worst mark in the league.
Perhaps the Leafs sorely miss the swift passing and creativity of Marner, who has been out since the first week of March due to a high ankle sprain. But then again, this has happened as well in previous years, so perhaps it has to do more with their set plays during the man advantage instead.
Maybe by creating some variety and movement on the power play, it can help resolve the issue in the long run. But nevertheless, since it has been a recurring issue, the Leafs will need to find a way to rectify it before the start of the playoffs, or else it could eventually spell their doom.