Just over two weeks ago, reeling in the aftermath of the Morgan Rielly/Ridly Greig brouhaha, the Toronto Maple Leafs were sitting in a wild-card spot and looking like a not-so-sure thing for the playoffs.
Fast forward to today, after the franchise’s first seven-game win streak in more than 20 years (Nov. 22-Dec. 6, 2003), and the Leafs are comfortably in a playoff position, third in the Atlantic Division, with an outside chance of climbing even a little higher now.
The Leafs trail the second-place Florida Panthers by six points, with a game in hand, and sit seven points back of the division-leading Boston Bruins, with two games in hand. They have two games remaining against both squads. In short, the division crown is suddenly back on the table (if still unlikely).
A heater like the one the Leafs are on will do that. What’s fuelling this particular streak? Let’s run through the seven biggest factors.
1. Auston Matthews going up, up, up …
None of this is possible if Matthews doesn’t score and dominate like he has been.
Matthews has pumped in 10 goals in the seven wins, including back-to-back hat tricks against the Philadelphia Flyers and Anaheim Ducks. He’s shooting a flaming 34.5 percent in that stretch.
It’s not just the goal scoring, though. The Matthews-led top line is back to roasting opponents. The Leafs have won 63 percent of the expected goals and 70 percent of the high-danger shot attempts with Matthews on the ice during the win streak. And that’s with Matthews lining up for exactly 25 offensive zone draws and 25 defensive zone draws. In other words, his unit is still thriving even without generous deployment.
That’s MVP stuff.
2. Sheldon Keefe’s tinkering
John Tavares missed the Leafs’ blowout win over Anaheim on Feb. 17 with an injury the Leafs did not disclose.
He returned the next game in St. Louis but lost his job as the No. 2 centre as well as his position on the No. 1 power-play unit.
It was a pretty bold play from the Leafs head coach.
Not only is Tavares the captain of the team, but the second-highest-paid player on the team and a longtime NHL star. Diminishing his role is no small thing, particularly on the power play.
Tavares led the Leafs in power-play goals last season and was heating up there before the injury, with goals in three straight from a new position on PP1. Keefe kept him off the top unit anyway, playing a hunch by leaving Tyler Bertuzzi there instead.
Bertuzzi broke a 19-game goal drought with a power-play goal in his first game on PP1 (the one Tavares missed) and then, with his confidence ticking upward, added two more power-play goals over the weekend in his biggest night yet as a Leaf.
Hunch rewarded.
Playing on the third line, meanwhile, Tavares ended a 27-game drought with a five-on-five goal in Arizona and then added another one a night later in Vegas. I’m not convinced a Max Domi-led No. 2 line is sustainable for the Leafs, but for the time being, the shake-up has borne fruit.
Keefe and his staff also, notably, decided to keep their top two pairs on defence intact even when Rielly returned from his five-game suspension. It would have been very easy to shuffle things back to the way they were for the team’s longest-serving player, the one who was penalized for standing up for his team.
Keefe and his staff have pressed the right buttons of late. (Isaiah J. Downing / USA Today)
3. Depth scoring
Trailing only Matthews in goals among Leafs during the win streak? That would be Bobby McMann, of course, with seven.
It’s funny how life works out sometimes, as McMann was supposed to be a healthy scratch on the night he broke out with a hat trick on Feb. 13. He got into the lineup only because Tavares and Mitch Marner were sick and then buried three goals.
That game seemed to unlock something for the 27-year-old, that he could score at the NHL level if he shot the puck aggressively and used his thick 210-pound frame to get to the net. McMann has landed 21 shots during the win streak.
Combine McMann’s all-of-a-sudden contributions with Bertuzzi’s all-of-a-sudden contributions (four goals) and well, all of a sudden, the Leafs are getting offence from two players who had contributed almost nothing previously.
Twelve different Leafs have scored at least once during the win streak. The Leafs beat the Colorado Avalanche without either Matthews or William Nylander scoring a goal.
4. The Leafs are hot ????
Sometimes, puck luck just goes your way.
The Leafs are shooting almost 17 percent during the win streak, tops in the NHL. For context, the Leafs shot 10.4 percent in their first 50 games of the season.
5. Mitch Marner is playing his best hockey of the season
Marner typically finds another gear in January. And indeed, he’s produced 34 points in 22 games since the calendar turned over to 2024.
Marner has dropped in multiple points in all seven games of the win streak (and the loss to Ottawa that preceded it), piling up 14 assists. The zip to his game has returned. The passing is back to being otherworldly.
Auston loves a good magic trick ???? pic.twitter.com/FhEaM0tJiL
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) February 22, 2024
Also noteworthy: Marner’s defensive play is returning to Selke standards.
6. The power play is cooking
The number doesn’t even look real: The Leafs have scored on 47.6 percent of their power plays during the heater — 10 goals on 21 chances.
That’s, uh, hot.
Matthews has scored four of those goals and is now up to 15 power-play goals on the year. Two more and he’ll establish a new career high. Bertuzzi has added three, Nylander has a pair and McMann has chipped in with one.
Moving Tavares to PP2 has made that unit more dangerous — though the minutes for that group can be sparse.
7. Team D
Why have the Leafs done so much winning without Rielly in the past couple years? Absent their No. 1 defenceman, the team believes its commitment to defence, especially from the forwards, ratchets up.
The Leafs have surrendered only 10 five-on-five goals in the seven wins while scoring 23 at the other end. Their expected goal rate defensively in those spots (2.17 goals against per 60 minutes) trails only the always-stingy Carolina Hurricanes.
Is that sustainable with this group of players, especially as the schedule gets even more onerous? That remains to be seen. It’s been an impressive stretch regardless.
What’s next in the Leafs crease?
It’s decision time for management (beyond the trade deadline), with the imminent return of Joseph Woll and Calle Järnkrok as well as Mark Giordano, who’s been on bereavement leave.
Ultimately, Brad Treliving’s crew will have to decide if it wants to keep Martin Jones around or not as a third goaltender — at least until March 8, after which roster limits (though not the cap) disappear. If so, which feels almost mandatory, the Leafs GM is presumably choosing between keeping around William Lagesson as the seventh defenceman or getting rid of someone up front.
The Leafs will be at 14 forwards when Järnkrok returns.
Dropping one feels like the right move. But who? The Leafs could simply demote Nick Robertson to the Marlies. He doesn’t require waivers. That doesn’t feel fair given how he’s performed (though when he’s not scoring, his contributions are minimal).
With how things are going, is it Noah Gregor who hits the waiver wire? He’s lost his mojo and role in recent months.
Ilya Samsonov deflects a shot as Colorado Avalanche centre Ross Colton reacts. (Isaiah J. Downing / USA Today)
Assuming they hold on to Jones, how do the Leafs — starting with Keefe and goalie coach Curtis Sanford — manage starts for three goalies? How much of a hold should Ilya Samsonov have on the crease? He’s won nine of his last 10 starts, though it’s worth noting his save percentage since the All-Star break is a blah .896.
He’s not Connor Hellebuyck. Full ownership of the crease hasn’t been earned in that way. This should be an open competition.
The Leafs need to see if Woll can reassert himself after a long absence of 34 games and almost three months. Maybe that means a simple rotation between him and Samsonov until one pulls ahead, and then find the odd start for Jones here and there.
Carrying three goalies isn’t all that unusual. The Hurricanes are doing it right now. So are the Habs. The Leafs should join them.
Points
1. Something impossible to know that I can’t help wondering about anyway: Was Rielly confronting Greig, in defence of his team on Feb. 10, a turning point for the Leafs? Did that incident pull the team tighter together somehow?
2. One guy who deserves a lot of credit for how he’s played of late: Ryan Reaves.
The Leafs’ fourth line is no longer a black hole when he’s out there. The Leafs have actually outshot teams 27-10 at five-on-five when Reaves has been on the ice in his last five outings. The expected goals are right around 80 percent.
Reaves looks like he’s picked up half a step. He’s no longer lagging behind the play.
I still don’t think the 37-year-old belongs in a playoff lineup and when Järnkrok returns, he may be the odd man out. It might be a question of fit, though. In other words, would Keefe rather play Reaves in fourth-line duty with David Kämpf or one of Robertson or Gregor (assuming he’s still around)?
Gregor’s falloff (coupled with Järnkrok’s injury) has opened the door for Reaves to get back into the conversation. He’s done just that.
The Leafs have outshot their opponents 27-10 at five-on-five with Reaves on the ice in his last five outings. (Nick Turchiaro / USA Today)
3. TJ Brodie on moving back to the left side: “You just gotta think a little bit extra. You get used to just automatically going to that (right) side. There’s times throughout the game where I catch myself wandering over there. That’s probably the biggest adjustment. And then just turning and pivoting; it’s all pretty much, for the most part, going the other way.”
4. Brodie is technically back on his “natural” side. However, he’s spent most of his NHL career on the right, which kinda makes it his more, well, natural side … no? As Brodie pointed out, he’s spent time on the left here and there the last couple seasons, including with Justin Holl in Games 4 and 5 of the second round against Florida.
His game has looked cleaner on the left. “It feels pretty good,” Brodie said, though he insists he has no preference.
If the Leafs do end up acquiring another righty, Brodie may end up on the left, perhaps alongside Jake McCabe (playing the right). His performance there, at the very least, increases the options for Keefe.
5. How long, I do wonder, before Brodie moves back to the right in top-pairing duty with Rielly?
The Brodie-Timothy Liljegren combo was hammered in Colorado: Shot attempts were 26-11 for the Avs when those two were out there at five-on-five. Colorado outchanced the Leafs 8-1 when Brodie and Liljegren were on the ice against Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen at five-on-five.
It kind of feels like the Leafs will end up here — until they make a trade:
Rielly — Brodie
Benoit — McCabe
Giordano/Lagesson — Liljegren
6. Playing Rielly lower down the lineup (he was fourth in five-on-five minutes among the team’s D on Saturday) means fewer opportunities for the Leafs’ best offensive defenceman by a mile to get on the ice with Matthews, the Leafs’ best offensive player. Rielly logged more five-on-five time with Tavares (5:58) and Kämpf (4:51) in Colorado than he did with Matthews (4:43). The Leafs won 74 percent of the expected goals in the Matthews-Rielly minutes that night. They need to up those minutes.
7. One card Keefe is playing more often of late: Tavares at left wing alongside Matthews and Marner.
It’s a way to get the captain out there more often, now that he’s in the 3C hole and off PP1, and out there with two of the team’s three best offensive weapons. The trio logged 2.5 minutes together on Saturday and over four minutes in the last week.
8. Tavares played 14:38 in Vegas and 15:48 in Colorado, two of his lower totals of the season.
That’s partly because of the drop-off in power-play time. And being on the third line, essentially a third line with two rookies, means less opportunity for Tavares — hence the odd spins up top.
Järnkrok will end up knocking Robertson off Tavares’ line, at which point Keefe may be more likely to play that particular threesome. Then again, barring a trade for a forward, I have to think Tavares returns to the 2C position at some point.
Shot attempts were 26-12 for Colorado when the Bertuzzi-Domi-Nylander unit was on the ice. The Avs scored once as Bertuzzi and Nylander changed and again when the line was out there fully intact.
— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Hockey Reference
(Top photo of Auston Matthews, Tyler Bertuzzi and William Nylander celebrating Bertuzzi’s hat trick: Isaiah J. Downing / USA Today)
