It was an interesting first season as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs for Max Domi.
While not many expected him to be a superstar, many fans across Leafs nation were excited to have the son of former fan favourite Tie Domi on the squad.
While Max is clearly more offensively talented than his father, it did take him a while to score his first goal with the Toronto Maple Leafs (he was goalless until early December), Domi managed to find his game shortly after and provide some quality secondary scoring that the team has needed for years.
With a full year now under his belt and a new contract ensuring he'll be a member of the team for the next four seasons, can Domi improve in year 2 in the blue and white?
Predicitons For Max Domi In His Second Season With the Toronto Maple Leafs
The easy answer is yes, I think most people think he'll improve in his second year with the Leafs. Not that he had a bad first year by any means, however.
While he only scored nine goals in the entire regular season, Domi finished with a solid 47 points in 80 games. For a player who only made $3 million last year, and $3.75 million for the next four seasons, 47 points is more than fine.
However, if you dig down a bit, Domi wasn't that good. He played most of his minutes as a third-line centre who was mismatched and who needed extreme sheltering to win his minutes. This hurt the Leafs because unlike New York and Tampa, who worked hard to shelter the likes of Panarin and Kucherov, the Leafs easiest minutes were going to their 6th best offensive player.
This hurt the lineup, and Domi was unlikely to be re-signed, but then something funny happened: Sheldon Keefe started playing him on a line with Auston Matthews. When on the ice with Matthews Domi scored at a franchise-player rate.
With Nick Robertson, and playing extremely sheltered minutes that meant the likes of Matthews and Marner weren't getting easier minutes, Domi scored an excellent 2.9 P/60 at 5v5.
But with Auston Matthews he scored 3.77 P/60 minutes, which is insane. For context, the most Connor McDavid has ever scored over a full season is 3.55 P/60.
So clearly, all signs point towards Domi stepping his game up even further this year.
The organization now knows Domi's strengths, who he plays well with, and he loves playing for the Leafs. Playing him with Auston Matthews opens up a world of possibilities for Craig Berube and gives the Leafs a much more dynaic group of forwards.
Rarely do we see secondary players on the Leafs sign contracts to stay with the team long term. The team's secondary group of forwards has been a revolving door over the entirety of the Matthews-Marner era. Recent examples include, Alex Kerfoot, Tyler Bertuzzi, and Ilya Mikheyev, so it is good to see a player actually showing they want to stay with the team.
The Ontario native showed last year how good his playmaking abilities truly are, and a full season beside Auston Matthews should easily see him post career-best numbers.