SIMMONS: The math and the money don't add up for dreary Maple Leafs power play
The Leafs have the highest-priced power play in hockey, yet rank 19th-best in the NHL with the man advantage
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The Maple Leafs sport the most expensive power-play unit in the National Hockey League — yet it’s one of the least effective.
All of which doesn’t add up in hockey dollars or any other kind of economics or analytics.
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SIMMONS: The math and the money don't add up for dreary Maple Leafs power play Back to video
Dollar for dollar, there is almost no comprehending how troubled this apparently great Toronto team is while playing with the man advantage. The more talent the Leafs appear to have on their power play, the less efficiently the club has operated this season.
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When you add up the salaries of the Leafs first power play — assuming it has Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Willam Nylander, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly on the ice — you get to $54.1-million worth of talent.
That makes them the highest-priced power play in hockey. Yet they rank 19th-best in the NHL with the man advantage.
That by itself is an indictment of first-year head coach Craig Berube and his choice for power-play coaching specialist Marc Savard.
Two seasons and three seasons ago, with basically the same five players, when Spencer Carbery coached the Leafs power play, they were first and second in the NHL, respectively.
They had a 32.4% power play in 2023 — which is better than anyone in the NHL today — when Carbery left the Leafs to become head coach of the Washington Capitals.
In the first of two years under Carbery, the Leafs had a 27.3% power play and that was best in the NHL.
Today, under Savard and under Berube, fighting for some kind of an identity, they are 20.6% — rather embarrassing numbers for a group of this skill level.
Embarrassing numbers for anyone who wants to play moneyball in the process.
Their power play is $20 million greater in salary than that of Sheldon Keefe’s New Jersey Devils. The Devils are third in the NHL on the PP as of Monday at 28.4%.
Second in the NHL are the Detroit Red Wings. Their power-play unit gets paid $17 million less than the Leafs top five. They’re at 28.6%, second behind only the Winnipeg Jets at a rather tidy 32.3%.
The Jets power-play payroll comes in at $22 million less than the Leaf players are paid — which has to be troublesome for general manager Brad Treliving, who inherited a financial pickle with the club and has attempted to have it make sense.
Were this the NFL, where coaching coordinators become all too prominent for both success and failure, there would be a movement to have Savard replaced as power-play coach.
He was with the Calgary Flames last season and they were 26th in the league with the man advantage. When the St. Louis won the Stanley Cup in 2019, Berube’s Blues finished 10th in the NHL on the power play.
Those aren’t exactly Carbery-like numbers.
Since Matthews, Marner and Nylander entered the NHL at almost the same time, the Leafs have year after year been one of hockey’s better teams with the man advantage. Over those nine seasons, including this one, only the Edmonton Oilers with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, and the Tampa Bay Lightning with Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman, have been better than the Leafs on the power play.
So how do you explain this season’s lack of performance?
Begin with structure. Quite simply, the Leafs lack it on the power play.
You watch the best power plays in the game and the purpose of each player on the ice appears defined by the coaching staff.
The Tampa power play, which used to have Steven Stamkos and now has Jake Guentzel and Brandon Hagel alongside Kucherov, Hedman and Brayden Point, operates through Kucherov. Every player seems to know their role. Kucherov, who like Draisaitl is an elite passer, maybe the best in hockey, finds open players and finds himself open for shots.
It’s different than the way the Edmonton Oilers run their power play, with McDavid doing whatever it is he does and Evan Bouchard at the top of the umbrella with a bullet slapshot, and somebody, usually Zach Hyman, in front of the goaltender. It’s a basic formula run with extreme talent.
The Leafs have some extreme power-play talent — the $54.1-million worth. That’s 14 million more than the Oilers pay. That’s almost $20 million more than Pittsburgh pays its greatest talents and the Penguins are at 25.8%.
Even the remarkable Columbus Blue Jackets, having a season that is hard to explain, pay only $17 million for their entire first power-play unit. They’re ninth in the NHL, just behind the Oilers. At $34 million less than the Leafs are paying.
The Leafs desperately need structure, speed and sharper zone entries to find success on the power play. Without that, they’re simply wasting money, talent and opportunity — the wrong combination — all at the very same time.
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