Overtime thoughts

Stop me if you’ve heard this before this season, but the Leafs lack Secondary scoring. Tonight was their third loss in a row, and they scored only one goal in each game. Scoring only one goal makes it hard to win in the NHL, no matter who your goaltender is, because of the quality of the offensive players on every team. 

They chose to invest heavily in the core four—Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner, and John Tavares—but offensively, they have always performed. The main criticism of this Maple Leafs team over the past eight years has been its inability to defend. This season, they have built the strongest defensive core of the Matthews era and brought in defensive-minded coach Craig Berube to stabilize their play on that end of the ice.

To my surprise, this has not affected the core four’s productivity offensively, with Nylander on pace to smash his career-high in goals. The issue for Berube over the last month has been to find a way to get his 3rd and 4th lines going offensively to ensure long-term success heading into the postseason. If we remember, this issue seemed to be fixed in December when the 3rd line of Max Domi, Nick Robertson, and Bobby McMann scored 8 goals in a span of three games, where we saw the Leafs win those games.

The guys making the most money are not the problem when it comes to contributing offensively, since they are leading the team in points. The issue is how drastic the drop-off points are after that. Mitch Marner is leading the pack with 68 points, 18 more than Nylander, who leads the team in goals with 28. As far as the forwards go, other than the core four, Mathew Knies and Bobby Mcmann, who are having outstanding seasons respectively, nobody else is joining in on the offense, and it is concerning as we get closer to the playoffs. 

Max Domi, who was given a four-year deal this offseason, is having an off year, with only three goals so far, his last one being 18 games ago. On the other hand, Nick Robertson was expected to take a step forward this year after lighting up the preseason, but once again, the undersized winger is struggling to score consistently in the NHL with 5 goals in 50 games.

Time will tell if this is an issue that can be resolved with the current players on this roster or if management will look to bring in a top-nine forward via trade to bolster the offense. I have my eyes on Yanni Gourde, Scott Laughton, Mikael Granlund, and even though I don’t think the Flames will move on from him, Nazem Kadri.