The Maple Leafs power play needs to find a sense of urgency

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost Game 3 for a variety of reasons with the most impactful one having to do with their power play. The Leafs went 0-for-5 during the 4-2 loss to the Bruins and continue to struggle with the man advantage. Finding a sense of urgency and speeding things up might help.

These power-play demons have been following the team around for quite some time, so the finger of blame can’t be pointed at not having William Nylander in the lineup. Yes, Nylander certainly helps a number of dynamics of their power play, including bringing the puck into the zone or being a threat in the o-zone, but these struggles date back throughout the later stages of the regular season when Nylander was a regular on the top unit.

The Maple Leafs finished the regular season ranked 7th overall with 24% efficiency with the man advantage. However, if it’s broken down a bit further, after starting the regular season at over 30% in October and even having a 50% month in February, the last two months of the regular season were dismal. 9.1% efficiency in March and 17.9% in April. Not good enough for the type of talent the Maple Leafs possess.

So what’s the issue? Everyone in the league and across the hockey world seems to be using the ‘drop-back’ method to gain possession in the offensive zone but it seems like the Maple Leafs try to do so with absolutely no speed or support. The amount of time this team decides to waste in their own zone circling the puck around is head-scratching. It chews up way too much time and it needs to stop. The five-man unit needs to be more connected, they need to play faster and you can even include Ilya Samsonov in all the mess, as he needs to do a better job of getting to pucks and dump-ins and advance the puck up the ice so they don’t even get a chance to regroup for 25 seconds in their own zone.

It seems like every time Auston Matthews or Mitch Marner carry the puck into the offensive zone they chip it over to John Tavares, who is standing still along the sideboards and has to make a snap decision before the defender collapses. This is a horrible play and Tavares should never be given the puck when he’s standing still. He’s not the fleetest of foot when he’s at top speed so asking him to make a play standing still is not a recipe for success, especially with pressure from the penalty killings closing in.

The Maple Leafs aren’t playing fast enough with the man advantage. They continue to look for the perfect play cross seam and haven’t done a good enough job going high-to-low and getting shots through from the point. Boston seems to be doing a good job taking the one-timer away from Matthews and while Marner has had a couple of moments circling around, everything needs to be sped up so the Bruins’ penalty killers don’t get set, and are kept on their toes. It also doesn’t help that right now the Maple Leafs are making it too easy for Jeremy Swayman to see the puck and if he sees it, he’s going to stop it.

Maple Leafs May Need to Take Page From Bruins

The Bruins have dealt with much of the same this season as their power play also struggled down the stretch of the regular season. So far against the Leafs, however, that hasn’t been the case at all.