Mitch Marner and a ‘disconnected’ top line: Monday Morning Leafs Report

We’re still in October (just barely), which means it’s still early. But there’s no getting around the fact that Mitch Marner and the Toronto Maple Leafs No. 1 line haven’t hit top gear just yet.

The numbers are pretty ordinary to this point: The Leafs are about even in shot attempts (114-110), scoring chances (58-56) and goals (4-4) when Marner and Auston Matthews have been on the ice with five a side.

The expected goal number is a rosier 58 percent, but that’s still not quite at Marner-Matthews standards. Over the previous three seasons, that number was 63 percent.

“I wouldn’t say it’s executing at the level that we’ve come to expect from them,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said of the top line during the team’s recent road trip.

Compare this season (small sample size to be sure) with last and you can see the Leafs just haven’t been anywhere near as dominant with their two best players on the ice. Less dangerous on offence. Defending more than usual.

We isolate those two, obviously, because they’re the two superstars and because they’ve played with two left wingers already in Tyler Bertuzzi and Calle Järnkrok (as well as a brief stint with William Nylander), neither of whom has fit particularly well. “Obviously we’ve gone through quite a bit of players on our left side,” Marner said. “Just really haven’t gotten a full feel with one yet.”

Bertuzzi has looked livelier with John Tavares and Nylander. Järnkrok brings “intelligence and work ethic” in Keefe’s estimation, but lacks the playmaking chops or net-front disturbance skills to really liven things up.

The Leafs lack another option beyond Matthew Knies, who looked like the rookie he is at points during the recent trip. He doesn’t appear ready for that kind of role just yet. (Decision making with the puck has been an issue.)

The Leafs haven’t been anywhere near as dominant with Matthews and Marner on the ice as they were last season. (Dan Hamilton / USA Today)

But really, this is about Matthews and Marner.

Marner, in particular, hasn’t looked like Marner yet. He’s collected only seven points in the first eight games and only three points at five-on-five (the same number as Knies and Max Domi). There’s some unluckiness baked in there — a six percent on-ice shooting percentage, namely — but Marner has not been his usual crisp self handling the puck. He turned it over a number of times in uncharacteristic fashion over the weekend in Nashville.

Marner said on the trip that “turnovers and mistakes happen” when frustration sets in. He noted that frustration hadn’t set in, though it’s starting to look that way.

As Keefe noted in Dallas, “Some of the passing, in particular, just hasn’t quite been crisp and sharp, and execution hasn’t been happening.”

Added Matthews: “It feels a little bit disconnected at times. But I think there’s also some really good moments that we’ve had. But I think just wanting to have more overall consistency at five-on-five is important.”

Matthews has scored at five-on-five in only one game so far (he had two against Minnesota in the second game of the year).

It’s worth noting that Marner has mostly been a slow starter in the NHL. He had the same seven points in the first eight games last season (and only two in the first eight the season before that) and finished with 99 points. He’ll get into gear soon enough.

In normal times, Keefe might swap him with Nylander at a point like this. But Nylander and Tavares have been so dynamic together that that’s clearly not an option at the moment.

It’s worth noting that Matthews and Marner are having to shoulder a much heavier burden because of roster limitations — namely, third and fourth lines that lack defensive utility. The two stars have a collective offensive zone faceoff percentage of about 52 percent so far.

That number was 67 percent last year. They’re having to work their way out of their zone more often. That’s a consequence of not being able to bury David Kämpf-led lines in the defensive zone.

Points

1. The Leafs entered Sunday’s play tied 24th in the league on the penalty kill at just over 74 percent. They gave up two power-play goals to Ryan O’Reilly in Nashville. “It’s a work in progress for us here,” Keefe said. Part of the challenge is, again, tied to personnel: The Leafs are working in a number of players who never, or rarely, killed penalties in the NHL before — Matthews totaled 24 minutes before this season; Noah Gregor played 37.5 minutes during his time in San Jose; Knies, a rookie, had nothing; Nylander had 50 minutes to his name, most of which came last season.

As Keefe said, “In a lot of ways, we’re trying to manufacture penalty killers.”

In other words, it might take time. (It might also be a weak point of the roster that needs addressing at some point. The Leafs lost crucial penalty killers like Justin Holl, O’Reilly, Alex Kerfoot, Noel Acciari and Luke Schenn in the offseason, and didn’t replace them.)

2. The Leafs returned Marner to first-unit duty with Kämpf last week, a necessary change after a rough start for Järnkrok on PK1.

3. One stat from Joseph Woll’s start that really pops: He’s stopped 43 of 47 shots from high-danger zones. That puts him in the 95th percentile.

(NHL.com)

4. Keefe on the Nylander-Tavares connection: “The start that they’ve got off to is collectively, in terms of the two of them together, is probably the best that they’ve played and the most in-sync they’ve been.”

5. The Leafs entered Sunday’s play ranked 14th in the NHL with an expected goals mark of just under 51 percent, per Evolving Hockey. They were fifth at 54 percent last year.

6. Matthews has shown why it was worthwhile to drop him onto the penalty kill: He’s tied for the NHL lead with eight shot attempts short-handed. Eventually, some of those opportunities will drop.

7. Keefe on Mark Giordano’s ability to play bigger, harder minutes in Jake McCabe’s absence: “This is a very experienced and accomplished defenceman. He’s ready for anything that we give him. It’s not even a question for us.”

8. Giordano dropped five pounds in the summer, with the intention of feeling “lighter” this season. “It’s hard though man,” he said this fall. “I like eating those big plates of pasta.” He added: “I feel like you don’t want to get too light, you start getting pushed around in my experience. But that five-pound range, I think that does help, you do notice a difference.”

9. John Klingberg is struggling to get pucks through to the net: Even being on for all those O-zone faceoffs, he’s landed only four shots on goal to this point at five-on-five, fewer than Rielly (13), Giordano (12), TJ Brodie (six) and even McCabe (five). Klingberg has attempted 23. Too many are getting blocked, including six (!) alone against the Preds.

Klingberg signed a one-year, $4.15 million contract with the Maple Leafs in July. (Jerome Miron / USA Today)

In focus

After Nylander, the Leafs’ October MVP might just be Rielly, who’s picked up where he left off in the playoffs. Rielly is averaging a team-high 24 minutes; he has two goals and seven points in the first eight games, even without a spot on PP1, and the Leafs have a 53 percent expected goal mark when he’s been out there, primarily facing first and second lines.

“I just think he’s skating really well,” Keefe said the other day. “He’s really moving his feet, whether it’s to break up a play or to advance the puck to get involved in the play offensively. Just the way he’s moving his feet and skating, that’s when he’s at his best.”

The Leafs have upped Rielly’s five-on-five minutes substantially this fall — to over 19 minutes per game, a top-10 mark among NHL defencemen and not far off the lead. (He was tied for 87th last year at 16:40 per outing.)

Rielly has two goals and seven points in the first eight games of the season. (Jerome Miron / USA Today)

Dig a little deeper and the numbers look even more impressive.

Taking on the top-line challenge again with Brodie this season, Rielly has lined up for more defensive zone draws (52) than offensive zone draws (48) at five-on-five. Not since the 2017-18 season has Rielly boasted an offensive zone faceoff percentage below 50 percent; he’s currently at 48 percent.

Defensive numbers below the hood really pop in comparison to last year:

That’s nearly eight fewer shots on goal per 60 minutes and nearly five fewer scoring chances. High-danger attempts against are way down, a signal that Rielly, with help from Brodie, is doing a much better job of keeping the net-front area clear.

The two of them aren’t spending a ton of time defending despite the competition and deployment. They’re killing plays quickly. Rielly’s five-on-five offence has suffered a bit from the added defensive responsibility, but it’s a tradeoff the Leafs will happily take.

Things I like (and don’t like)

Like: Rielly has played less than half of Klingberg’s minutes on the power play, but has outproduced him (3-2) anyway so far. With Guy Boucher at the controls, the Leafs are using Rielly differently than they have in the past beyond the PP2 assignment. Crucially, they’ve been letting Timothy Liljegren man the point position of the second unit, which has allowed Rielly to play more of a roaming, rover-style role.

MO STRIKES FIRST! pic.twitter.com/uVy2O6CLbc

— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) October 24, 2023

Don’t like: The Leafs are taking an odd approach to injury disclosure this season. They’ve gone back in time to the Lou Lamoriello days of labelling injuries as either lower or upper body. The club mostly ditched that under Kyle Dubas. (Is it a Brad Treliving directive?) It’s had the effect of putting the people who deliver the information in position (Keefe, the media relations staff, etc.) to be needlessly vague and/or evasive. (Credit to Keefe, who came right out and said McCabe had a groin injury when asked.) Over the weekend in Nashville, the Leafs initially said Liljegren had a lower-body injury, only to clarify later that actually it was an upper-body ailment. That’s not an issue if the team had been upfront to begin with and said it was a shoulder injury, say. That injury update, which came with less than 10 minutes left in the third period, also stated that Liljegren was “doubtful” to return. He left the game midway through the second. Two days earlier, the team said McCabe, who injured his groin on the very first shift in Dallas, was “questionable” to return after the second period was well underway. The Leafs should get back to being leaders on this front.

And one more thing…

It’s early but the Leafs begin the week four points behind the Bruins (7-0-1), the team (minus some key parts) that ran away with the Atlantic very quickly last season. Thursday’s game in Boston feels like a big one.

(Top photo of Mitch Marner battling for the puck against the Nashville Predators: John Russell / NHLI via Getty Images)

Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference and CapFriendly