Maple Leafs Make Massive Changes to Top Power Play Units Amid Early Season Struggles
The Maple Leafs have finally made significant changes to their power play units amid tremendous early-season struggles.
Heading into Saturday's overtime loss to the Boston Bruins, the Leafs' power play had been atrocious to start the season. However, it became more of a concern when it was revealed just how bad the power play had been since the end of February last season.
Heading into the game against Boston, the Leafs began the season 3-for-28 and after going 0-for-3 Saturday, they are now 3-for-31 and operating at a hair under 10% efficiency on the season. That number is good (or bad) enough for 29th in the league, but dating back to February 27th the Leafs had scored on just 13 of 121 opportunities before going 0-for-3 against Boston.
The power play has been so bad that they even failed to score on a 5-on-3 Saturday thanks to Mitch Marner passing up a glorious opportunity to score on an open net.
Ahead of their clash with the surprisingly undefeated Winnipeg Jets on Monday, the Leafs shook up their power play units in a major way. Morgan Rielly returned to the top unit on Saturday, and will remain there for Monday's contest, but both John Tavares and William Nylander have been relegated to the second unit. Replacing them on the top unit are Matthew Knies, who has three goals in his last four games, and Max Pacioretty.
While Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner remain on the top unit, Tavares and Nylander will join Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Max Domi and Bobby McMann on the second unit.
Leafs fans have been asking for the coaching staff to break up the 'Core Four' on the power play dating back to last season, but Sheldon Keefe never really gave it any thought - even when they had been struggling. Hopefully the significant changes can re-invigorate the horrendous power play and help the Leafs to snap the Jets' 8-game winning streak to begin the season.
| POLL | ||
OCTOBRE 28 | 1757 ANSWERS Maple Leafs Make Massive Changes to Top Power Play Units Amid Early Season Struggles Are you surprised it took this long to break up the "Core Four" on the power play? | ||
| Yes, should have happened years ago | 1073 | 61.1 % |
| No, nobody wanted to hurt anyone's feelings | 185 | 10.5 % |
| I don't care as long as they score | 499 | 28.4 % |
| List of polls | ||
