Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs, left, skates against Matthew Poitras of the Boston Bruins during overtime at TD Garden in Boston, on Nov. 2.Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
In the first small slice of the season the Maple Leafs have served up surprises both good and bad.
Their record – 5-3-2 – is about what you’d expect. How they got there isn’t. They enter Saturday’s home game against the Sabres with three successive defeats – including one in overtime and one in a shootout – for the first time since October, 2022.
On Tuesday they were booed at Scotiabank Arena during a lacklustre loss to the Los Angeles Kings.
But let’s start with the good.
Toronto’s four core forwards – Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander – have got off to good starts. Nylander, especially so. He leads the team with 14 points, is second in goals with six and has established a franchise record by registering a point in each of the first 10 outings.
Joseph Woll has been a revelation in the net and has, for the time being, taken the starting job away from Ilya Samsonov. Woll is 3-2 with a .942 save percentage and has drawn raves from teammates. Samsonov began poorly but seems to be on the rebound after making 38 saves in Thursday’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Bruins.
Overall the power-play unit has been sharp but penalty killing has been soft.
Now, for the bad, and there is enough of it that it is troubling.
For the most part, players acquired in the offseason have done little to match the excitement that those transactions generated.
Tyler Bertuzzi is at the top of the list. How does a guy go from being on the first line to start the season to the fourth in Game 10? He has been so in effective that he sat out the last 8 1/2 minutes on Thursday and played a season-low 11 minutes 32 seconds overall.
He has scored just twice, takes dumb penalties and is in coach Sheldon Keefe’s doghouse.
“He needs to simplify his game,” Keefe said late Thursday in Boston. “Today we had a very simple game plan and he failed to execute that so other guys took his place.”
Ouch.
Max Domi has been better than Bertuzzi, but not by a lot. Four assists and very little impact. Still hasn’t quite found a comfortable spot.
What is there to say about Ryan Reaves? He came on like gangbusters in the first two games. His line – the fourth – was lauded by Keefe again and again. But hasn’t played with the same bluster since then. He is a role player, so he won’t get many minutes. When he gets them, he needs to make the most of it.
The defence is a bit of a schmozzle. It wasn’t going to be a strong point to begin with but other than Morgan Rielly and, occasionally, John Klingberg, there hasn’t been much going on back there. And now Timothy Liljegren has a significant lower-body injury thus further eroding the depth. The defensive corps was already without Jake McCabe. Look for a Marlie to be called up on Saturday.
Maybe the Maple Leafs should trade Nylander, who is in the last year of his contract, for a good D-man. Just kidding.
While Matthews leads the team with eight goals, he has had just two over the past eight games. He’ll get his share for sure, but to me something looks a bit off. On Thursday he went 0 for 11 in the faceoff circle, beaten every time by Charlie Coyle.
Matthews has won just 46.7 per cent of his faceoffs thus far – which is way below the standard he has set over his career. What am I missing?
It has neither been a feel-good nor feel-bad start. A little more will be known over the next 10 games. It is early but at best – and this is troubling – these Maple Leafs look an awful lot like last year’s, and the year before that.
Lots of new pieces to the puzzle but so far they haven’t quite fit.
Marty Klinkenberg