The Toronto Maple Leafs have seen improvement in a number of areas that have hampered them in the past. The first one that jumps out is goaltending, tied for second in the league with a team save percentage (SV%) of .905, and from a broader perspective, a commitment to team defence across the board.

The one drawback to this is that it’s taken away from an area of strength that the Maple Leafs have boasted in years past – offence. Gone are the days of the team that finished the season leading the league in power play percentage. The Leafs currently sit 12th in the league in goals-for-per-game at 3.14/G, but the more glaring issue is the power play, where they sit 18th in the league.

To the team’s credit, the power play is in a much better place than they were to start the season. There was a point where the team was dead last in the NHL in that department, and for a team that boasts multiple point-per-game players, that simply can’t fly. Head coach Craig Berube is aware of this and has taken steps to try and give his team a boost with the man advantage, including mixing in a five-forward power play, but acknowledges that there’s work to be done despite the general forward progress throughout the course of the season.

“I think it’s working,” Berube told reporters following Saturday’s morning skate. “I think our percentage has increased quite a bit since the start of the year. Now listen, I told you guys before that I’m not opposed to always doing something different on it. I went with five forwards in the Philly game, we scored, and then we got scored on the other night.”

Despite Berube’s realistic understanding of the situation, he wasn’t happy with what he was seeing at morning skate.

The Maple Leafs’ puck movement has been their most glaring issue on the power play and it was part of the reason they returned to their standard top unit of the core fore with Morgan Rielly on the point at morning skate. Berube was happy to give the all-forward unit credit but admitted that it sets opponents up to attack them harder and stressed the need to keep things fresh.

“Five forwards is tricky, teams are going to look at that and they’re going to attack all the time on it,” Berube said. “That’s going to be their mindset on the penalty kill. It’s not that I don’t like five forwards, they move the puck well in the zone and do some really good things. I don’t like it when the puck goes the other way. We’re just going to keep trying new things and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing to move people around and find new spots for them. It frees up some guys a little bit more. I’ve done this before, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”

The Leafs are coming off a 6-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes that snapped a five-game winning streak heading into Thursday night. They’ll have a prime opportunity to get back in the win column against a Vancouver Canucks team that was delayed leaving Raleigh following their tilt against the Hurricanes last night. It’s imperative that the Leafs don’t let their guard down despite the potential advantage, considering the Canucks beat them while half of the team was recovering from COVID-19 during the shortened 2020-21 season. Puckdrop is at 7 pm eastern on Hockey Night in Canada.