Leafs Thoughts: Auston Matthews must take the lead with series tied 2-2

No preamble – below are a half-dozen thoughts on the state of the Leafs through Game 4 of the second round, which finds them tied 2-2 with the Florida Panthers.

Auston Matthews‘ lack of scoring is a problem, but miscalibrated shooting isn’t to blame

Just about nothing I’ll write after this section matters if Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner can’t figure out how to create more offence. Everything except the play of Joseph Woll (a sudden bright spot) is secondary. 

So, let’s look at Matthews today. I’m doing my best to nip this whole “Matthews can’t hit the net and that’s why he can’t score” thing in the bud, as I fear I helped create it a couple weeks back by pointing out his high missed net total in a previous article. It’s true, he has missed the net a bit more than usual (just under two misses per game in the regular season, just over two so far in playoffs), but once you start looking for it, it becomes confirmation bias.

He gets a ton of shots (tied for the second most with Connor McDavid behind Nathan MacKinnon) and is trying to pick corners.

Missed nets are like giveaways in that good players have the puck a lot so their raw totals are high. For sure, he’s had a few egregious misses, but I don’t see it as the primary problem. It may be a symptom of having to rush shots a bit more, as he isn’t getting to his spots as well as he usually does.

In sum, the Leafs’ huge centre just refuses to assert himself right now. He’s not skating, he’s standing, he’s almost lurking and waiting for others to go do it like he sees himself as Teemu Selanne rather than Eric Lindros. Matthews has never been lightning quick, but he usually gets up to top speed fairly regularly. He hasn’t been doing that. 

This decline has been a theme in the playoffs. His top skating speed in the regular season followed by the playoffs, over the past three years (percentile ranks, with 99 being the best):

2024-25: 61^st / Below 50^th

2023-24: 63^rd / Below 50^th

2022-23: 64^th, 57^th

When you don’t skate, you can’t get in on the forecheck. Over the past five playoff runs Matthews’ “hits per 60” has never been below 9.00, but this year they’re closer to 7.00. He needs to get those boots going, and everything else (including his shooting) will seem to magically get better.

This clip below made the coaching part of me mental, though it’s not just on Matthews. He wins the opening faceoff in a huge road game. In my mind, that’s a set-the-tone moment. 

Florida is in its structure, and you know you can’t skate through them, so you’re going to have to dump it in. The two wingers reload and build speed, but watch all three forwards. Matthews isn’t saving ice, dying to get in on the forecheck and land some thunderous hit. Marner takes almost no strides through the neutral zone. And Matthew Knies just gets too far ahead of it to have any momentum.

The Leafs get a dump, and by that point Matthews is skating backwards for some reason, while Marner skates in late and light and the Florida defence gets it back out no problem.

That’s a brutal “tone setter” forecheck just seconds into the game. Although in fairness, it did accurately forecast the game’s tone.

But this is the theme of Matthews’ game right now for me. I’m not sold that he’s “hurt” (it doesn’t show up anywhere else). To me he just looks stuck in mud, fading away from the dangerous areas, while on the road against a team like Florida, he needs to know: the only way out is through.

Florida does this to stars, as you’ll recall Connor McDavid was blanked in Games 6 and 7 of the Cup Final last year (two total shots). I’m not saying it’s easy, but I am saying you can’t play in a way that assumes it’s going to be anything remotely different from that. Matthews is a star, and has done a lot right to get the Leafs here. But he needs to show a little more dawg right now.

You have to dump it in versus the Panthers when they’re in their structure

This is probably a good time to go further on that and mention Florida has some say in how this series goes, and eight of their last nine playoff opponents have lost to them, unable to find solutions. Sunday night was the best team structure game I’ve seen a team play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs to date. I couldn’t find a Panther out of place.

For the Leafs, they know winning dumped pucks back is brutally hard, so down a goal, we saw them try to keep possession and find their way through the neutral zone last night. Not a chance. When the Panthers are in their neutral zone spots, that’s the game: You have to dump it in, otherwise it ends up looking like this as you try to break in.

And so, what are some solutions?

Rush play is a Leafs advantage

Florida has given up a surprisingly high amount of breakaways over the past couple seasons, and the Leafs have done a decent job exploiting that. Knies found one last game, and William Nylander nearly did too. Odd-man rushes are 19-13 for Toronto in the series, and this is not typically a category they control.

Coaches love to say the safe things like “don’t cheat, stick with it” and that sort of thing, but when Florida is on its game, I’ve yet to see a team just “stick with it” and find offence. Yes Toronto needs to be tight defensively. But with all the flipping of pucks they do on breakouts, it’s OK to leave the zone a second earlier.

If you’re telling a few guys (Nylander, Knies, Marner, Max Domi, Bobby McMann) it’s OK to go, I don’t think the Panthers are such an offensive dynamo that it kills you to take a couple chances and guess wrong. And the rewards can be huge, in that you may score, but a heightened awareness that the Leafs forwards are leaving the zone early could at least pull back the Panthers defence, making breakouts easier.

And Lord could the Leafs use a few easier breakouts. 

Does the home ice line match up thing matter?

Certainly, but I think it matters most to Florida. Matthews’ line was handling the Aleksander Barkov line with surprising ease (carrying the expected goals, as well as attempts and real goals, in the first three games) to the point where Florida moved that line to face Nylander’s group, who coincidentally had been red hot for the Leafs. Credit Paul Maurice, but it was kind of a no-brainer.

And so, the Panthers found a matchup they like, with Nylander’s line going quiet in Game 4, and Matthews/Marner unable to exploit the second line and second defence pair of Seth Jones and Niko Mikkola.

They’ll almost certainly go back to what worked in Toronto with Matthews on Barkov, going back to that power-on-power matchup that gave the Leafs’ second line more life.

Should they make lineup changes?

Yeah, it’s time. David Kampf makes over $2 million a year and played the fifth-most among forwards on the Leafs (after the core four) the previous time the Leafs won a playoff round. He’s not some scrub. And Nick Robertson skates and works and can shoot it in if the puck finds him in the offensive zone. They’re not getting so much from say, Calle Jarnkrok, that the lineup is untouchable.

But more than anything, you have to be able to use your advantages where you have them, and the Leafs have 14 NHL forwards, meaning they can infuse some fresh pop into their lineup when things go stale.

The only hangups on what would otherwise be a simple decision are that there’s an extra day of rest before the next game, so you’d expect everyone to have some more energy in their legs anyway. But also, the Leafs won their games in Toronto with their current lineup, so they know it can work. 

It’s not an easy call, but to me, if you’re looking at trying to play five-to-six more weeks of hockey this year, they’d benefit from spreading out the workload a bit.

So, can the Leafs still win this thing? 

Of course. More than anything else, the play of Joseph Woll should encourage that reality. With Anthony Stolarz out, and Woll putting forward an awesome effort in Game 4, there’s little conversation to be had about the crease. He’ll go in Game 5, and the team should feel good about that.

Next, the power play can be better. I think they have to stay with their five forward group, as that’s all they’ve done for months (neither Morgan Rielly nor Oliver Ekman-Larsson feel like some great upgrade). But they do need to be prepared for the hard pressure and bodies in the lanes, and to move the puck better so they can get it to the net and let Knies and John Tavares go to work down there. 

Finally, they’d love a depth goal from someone like McMann or Scott Laughton or Steven Lorentz, but of course, it doesn’t matter if the top guys aren’t scoring too. 

In the end, the Leafs have been right there in every game. It’s 2-2, and they’ve got home ice for what’s now a best of three. They’re in a good spot. Now, more than ever, they need solid goaltending and a big game from their best players. Craig Berube continues to show his faith that those things can, and will, happen. As the pressure mounts, we’ll see if this core can muster a different ending.

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