The Toronto Maple Leafs‘ woeful struggles in the 2025-26 NHL season took their first casualty last week with the firing […]
The Toronto Maple Leafs‘ woeful struggles in the 2025-26 NHL season took their first casualty last week with the firing of assistant coach and power play boss Marc Savard.
Now, that moribund special teams unit is getting a fresh new start with a sweeping list of changes. Much of the cast remains the same, but their roles have been adjusted to create a new look. Specifically, Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares will all have new positions to play on PP1. Jonas Siegel explains in The Athletic:
Nylander will slide from a spot on the left flank into the bumper position. Matthews is moving from his longtime gig on the right flank, where his one-timer was once weaponized, to the high left flank.
It appears the Leafs captain is likely to roam from just inside the blue line next to Morgan Rielly at the top and generate downward momentum for shooting opportunities from there.
Leafs’ new-look power play debuts
Another significant change sees Matias Maccelli moving in to play the facilitator’s role. Yes, that’s the same Matias Maccelli who was recently benched for nine straight games. But the Leafs’ power play, ranked dead last in the NHL, has sorely missed a playmaker this season, and now they’ll see if Maccelli can fill the role. He’ll do so from the right flank.
Meanwhile, Tavares will return to his net-front role, a place where he’s had plenty of success in the past. The former captain had scored 39 power play goals over the previous three seasons, the majority of them from that spot. This year? A meager two goals on the special teams unit for Tavares.
“Sometimes doing something different obviously can just give you a different feel, a different sense of things,” Tavares said.
New man in charge of Leafs’ power play
Assistant coach Derek Lalonde will temporarily run the power play unit, adding to his other specialty teams job with the penalty kill. New hire Steve Sullivan will eventually take over the power play, said head coach Craig Berube.
Toronto has gone an anemic 12-for-92 through 36 games with the man advantage, a success rate of just 13%. There are only two other teams in the NHL (the LA Kings and the Calgary Flames) that are even anywhere close to that feeble mark.
The Leafs will give this new alignment a shot in Saturday night’s tilt at home against the Ottawa Senators. They’ll presumably give it another shot in a back-to-back matchup in Detroit against the Red Wings Sunday night.
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