TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs scored one of their better wins of the season Tuesday night. Maybe their best win, even.
Playing without William Nylander, Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev, among others, the Leafs ran all over the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers for two periods and then hung on to beat them in the third.
“Everybody had a part of it tonight,” coach Craig Berube said. “All-around good team effort.”
The Leafs have now reeled off points in seven straight (5-0-2).
What’s fuelling this mini-surge? Here are six of the biggest factors.
1. The return of Matthews the Superstar
Auston Matthews is suddenly on pace for 44 goals after scoring for the seventh time in the last five games.
That’s more goals than he scored in all of October (five goals in 11 games) and all of November (five in nine).
And he could have had even more with some of the high-quality looks he generated versus the champs, including a first-period breakaway.
All this on a night when his franchise goal record was celebrated.
Former Leafs captain Mats Sundin took part in a pregame ceremony honouring Auston Matthews as the new franchise leader in goals. (Nick Turchiaro / Imagn Images)
The return of Matthews the Superstar continues.
Part of me has wondered whether Matthews just needed time, even half a season, to adjust to playing without Mitch Marner. How to create opportunities for himself, say, or how much to carry the puck without Marner there lugging it around — little things like that. They were linemates for most of the previous six seasons. But that wouldn’t explain why Matthews has looked so much sprier in recent weeks. He’s moving so much more powerfully these days. He’s shooting the puck (almost) as he did when he was scoring 60. He is generating a flurry of dangerous opportunities every night, which is leading to the kind of game-to-game flurries that were nonexistent until recently.
It’s evident that his confidence is inching higher and higher, too.
2. Rocking special teams
There’s been so much chatter about the power play (justifiably) that the penalty kill’s prowess has been largely overlooked.
The Leafs have killed off almost 92 percent of power plays during this streak. The unit ranks first in the NHL since Dec. 1 and third overall.
What’s remarkable is the Leafs have done it without Tanev, their best penalty killer, for most of the season and without another top penalty killer, Brandon Carlo, for the better part of the last two months.
The PK is better this season than it was last season when Tanev was healthy and Marner was still a Leaf.
What’s going on here?
Well, it’s goaltending, as you might expect. Leafs goaltenders have posted an unthinkable and league-best .950(!) save percentage on the PK since Dec. 1. No. 2 in that time? The New York Islanders, at .893.
The Leafs are winning a ton of draws short-handed, too, and boast the league’s No. 2-ranked short-handed winning percentage this season (55.9 percent). All that winning leads to quick clears and less time in the zone.
They went 4-for-7 on the draw during a perfect 3-for-3 penalty-kill night against the Panthers.
What also helps: not a lot of penalties to kill off in the first place. The Leafs have taken the seventh-fewest penalties in the league this season.
Scott Laughton has been excellent in a first-unit role, and Troy Stecher has been effective enough there in the wake of the injuries to Tanev and Carlo.
And then there’s that power play, which has been rolling since Marc Savard was fired shortly before Christmas.
Savard wasn’t solely to blame for the woes of the power play before that, but his dismissal seemed to release some tension. The power play has been more dynamic in the weeks since, with two units that actually threaten.
3. A ton of goals
The Leafs are scoring a lot.
Their totals in the past seven: 6, 7, 2, 4, 6, 3, 4.
That’s a whopping 32 goals, or almost 4.6 a game.
What’s notable is the absence of Nylander, still the team’s leading scorer, for the last five of those games.
Matthews is leading the way with seven goals. The contributions, though, go 14 deep and come from all four lines as well as the blue line:
Leafs’ goals in the past seven
Among the sneaky breakout offensive performers of late: Nick Robertson, who has three goals and 9 points in his last nine games.
In 13 games before that, Robertson had exactly 1 point: a goal.
Matthew Knies is also on the rise with five goals in the past seven. He deflected a Stecher shot for a goal against Florida and set up Matthews for one a short while later.
4. More puck control and O-zone time
The Leafs still aren’t outshooting teams. They’ve been outshot in six of the seven games (including a 32-23 tally in Florida’s favour) and are controlling only about 46 percent of the shots in that time.
However, they are finally spending a little more time rolling around the O-zone and generating higher-quality offence.
Their five-on-five expected goals percentage during this stretch is a sturdier 49.8 percent — not amazing but an improvement from around 48 percent.
The Leafs seem to be breaking out a little cleaner, chipping and chasing a little less often and forechecking a little more effectively when they decide to give it up.
There have been a lot more flourishes of speed coming through the middle of the ice, from Matthews, especially.
Here’s another marker of change for the Leafs’ captain: The team has won 62 percent of the expected goals when he’s been out there in this seven-game run. In other words, he’s tilting the ice in the dominant fashion of his peak years.
Also worth highlighting: the team-best 65 percent expected goals clip for Robertson during this stretch.
5. Line combos that work
It may have taken half a season, but Berube has unlocked some combinations with apparent staying power.
Just before the holiday break, the Leafs’ coach finally moved away from Knies on Matthews’ left wing and installed Bobby McMann instead. McMann has brought a Zach Hyman-like quality to the line, hustling down pucks, with help from Max Domi, for Matthews to capitalize on.
High-danger shot attempts are 24-12 for the Leafs in their minutes.
This is the best McMann has looked all season.
He has collected 9 points in his last nine games and is playing big minutes of late, including 19-plus against the Panthers.
The most intriguing combo of late, though, features Robertson, Nicolas Roy and Easton Cowan. Two plucky young wingers with a veteran centre. The unit created the Leafs’ first goal versus Florida with the puck pinging from Roy to Robertson to Cowan.
“I just think we’re complementing each other,” Robertson said afterward. “We’re playing fast, we like to have the puck on our stick and make plays, and our communication’s pretty high, on the ice and on the bench, which helps a lot.”
The line has rolled together for the last four games. The Leafs have outscored teams 2-0 in their nearly 40 minutes, while winning 60 percent of the expected goals.
Berube has been impressed with all the chances they’ve generated: “For me, they’ve been solid in all three zones.”
6. More energy and enthusiasm
There were too many times in the first few months of the season when this team looked lethargic.
That’s gone away here recently.
The Leafs were flying against the Panthers, full of energy, enthusiasm and pushback, especially early. They came out and dictated the play in the first period, holding Florida to four shots and very little time in the Toronto end.
They got to the net (scoring all four goals from high-danger zones) and also kept Florida to the outside, yielding just seven high-danger shot attempts at five-on-five all night.
“You play Florida, you gotta match the physicality, you gotta match how they’re coming at you all night,” Berube said.
His team certainly matched those efforts.
Matthews believed the team’s improved play dates back to even before the point streak, to back-to-back games in Nashville and Dallas last month. The Leafs lost both. “But I thought we were moving in the right direction,” he said.
His team hasn’t lost in regulation in the seven games since.
– Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Hockey Reference.