Why the Maple Leafs aren't as dangerous offensively this year, and how to fix it

One of the great things about covering the Toronto Maple Leafs is that every year, there’s a big debate surging in what is always a large, passionate fan base.

The subject feeding this year’s civil war feels decided already, one-third of the way into the season.

The two things universally agreed upon so far are that (a) the Leafs are getting outstanding goaltending from Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll and (b) they’re playing well defensively, thanks to a new coach, a new shutdown defenceman (Chris Tanev) and an improved penalty kill.

Those two positives have combined to allow the Leafs to jump from 21st in goals against last season all the way up to fifth, improving their GAA by 0.55.

All good things. No war. No fighting. Kumbaya.

But…

At the other end of the equation, the Leafs have declined from second in goals scored last season all the way down to 18th, dropping their goals per game by 0.67. So, net of everything, that’s bad, right? 0.67 is, after all, bigger than 0.55.

Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

As far as I can tell, there are three factions within the fan base right now when it comes to where the Leafs are at with their offence.

Faction 1: This isn’t a problem. The team needs to adapt to a more playoff-ready style of game, they’re playing great defensively and the goals will come as they grow accustomed to the Craig Berube Way.

Faction 2: This is a problem, but they’ve had a bunch of injuries and just wait until Auston Matthews gets back on track. It should be fine.

Faction 3: Oh no, it’s all happening again.

Step 1 for me with this question was a desire to take a closer look at why the Leafs have lost so many goals this season. Who isn’t scoring? Is it just the injuries? Or something else?

In terms of offence from the defence, as Jonas noted on Monday, they’re still not getting a lot. Last season, the Leafs’ blueliners scored 0.29 goals per game. This season, that’s down to 0.26.

It’s not a great number, and you’d like to see an improvement after adding Oliver Ekman-Larsson, but that’s not where the decline is coming from.

Up front, the only forwards the Leafs lost who scored goals for them last season were Tyler Bertuzzi (0.26 goals per 82 games) and Noah Gregor (0.07), and their totals have only partially been replaced by newcomers like Max Pacioretty and Steven Lorentz (0.07 and 0.11).

The biggest decline has been, unsurprisingly, from Matthews, as he contributed a whopping 0.84 goals per 82 games last season — 23 percent of the Leafs’ overall total. So far this season, he’s missed nine games, during which he would have been projected to score seven or eight goals based on his 2023-24 scoring rate.

Those nine goals alone would be enough to move the Leafs up into 10th in NHL scoring.

Auston Matthews’ injury and recovery account for a significant amount of the Leafs’ statistical dropoff in goals per game. (Mike Carlson / Getty Images)

Overall, the Leafs are down 0.55 goals per game simply from Matthews being either out of the lineup or less effective when he has been playing, which is a huge percentage of the 0.67 they’ve lost.

But Toronto’s struggles to score at the level they did last year aren’t simply a matter of no Matthews and failing to replace Bertuzzi’s 21 goals (although obviously those both hurt). If we break the Leafs forwards down into top six and bottom six, we can see their collective loss of offence down the lineup is almost identical to what they’ve lost from Matthews.

What’s interesting is that, if Toronto’s loss of offence is supposedly systems-generated, it hasn’t affected the other top-six forwards. The combined quintet of William Nylander, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, Matthew Knies and Bobby McMann is up 0.51 goals per game, stepping up in a big way to fill the gap left by Matthews.

It’s really the down-the-lineup forwards who have fallen off, both due to poor play and, in some cases, injuries.

On its own, losing Bertuzzi wasn’t that big of an issue, with Knies ready to take the next step and effectively double his goal production. But the combined impact of taking both Bertuzzi and Calle Jarnkrok out of the lineup entirely without suitable replacements —as well as the goals drying up entirely for Nick Robertson and Max Domi and the injuries to a few others — has been hard to overcome.

Even David Kämpf, Ryan Reaves and Pontus Holmberg combining for just one goal after 27 games adds up, as that’s almost nothing from a full line. Even from fourth liners, you need to be getting more than that.

At some point, these issues become cumulative, as you have too many players who can’t generate offence trying to do just that while playing with other struggling teammates.

Here’s the full breakdown of where the offence has come from last year versus this year.

The other thing I noticed in my analysis of the Leafs offence is that, statistically, they’re not down that much in terms of the scoring chances they’re creating under Berube.

Per evolving-hockey.com, the Leafs finished last season fourth in the NHL in expected goals with 3.62 per 60 minutes played. This season, that’s down to 3.29, which puts them ninth.

That’s a 9 percent drop — far less than the 18 percent drop in offence overall.

That stat, combined with the fact they’re currently 20th in shooting percentage, says they’ve been a bit unfortunate to not hit the back of the net more often, even with the lack of talent they’ve had some nights on the roster.

Knies, McMann, Marner and Nylander are all generating better chances in all situations than they did a year ago, so it hasn’t been a blanket falloff across the roster. The biggest drop in chances, again, comes back to Matthews not being Matthews and Berube not having Bertuzzi and Jarnkrok to help push more NHL-calibre depth into his bottom six.

The fix, then, for this isn’t going to be complicated.

They need to get more forwards healthy and create lines that allow them to generate more than a goal every three games from the bottom six, one of the worst rates for any team in the league. Start sitting offensive black holes, too, whether that’s Reaves, Holmberg, Robertson or some combination of all three.

They also need to continue to improve the power play, which still sits down in 18th after a brutal start.

But the two biggest things are probably the most talked about already:

1. Hope and pray Matthews can get back to his 60-plus goals a season self as soon as possible.

2. Find a way to add scoring talent before the trade deadline, even if it’s not down the middle.

I don’t know that the Leafs are ever going to get back to the 3.6 goals per game juggernaut they were last season, but that’s likely not necessary, not with their improvements defensively and in goal.

But a 10 to 15 percent bump up shouldn’t be out of reach here, between getting a bit healthier, a bit more luck and maybe, at some point, some help from the front office.

(Top photo of Tristan Jarry making a save against Auston Matthews: Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images)