Through the start of this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ power play has looked completely out of shape. The team holds the second-worst power play percentage in the league at 13.7 percent, with just 10 goals scored on the man advantage. As Toronto looks to turn its season around, fixing the power play will be crucial.

On Wednesday, longtime NHLer and former Marlies head coach Dallas Eakins joined Nick Alberga and Jay Rosehill on Leafs Morning Take. From his experience behind the bench, including as assistant coach of the Leafs back in the 2000s, he preached that the secret to strong special teams units is keeping an open dialogue between players and coaches.

“For me, especially if things are going off kilter, but even with the really good power plays, I think that it needs to be a conversation all the time,” Eakins said. “I think it needs to be a conversation between the coach that’s running it and the players that are on the two units. Where there’s input and you’re asking questions. Hey, what did you guys see here? What do you think would work? What are you guys comfortable with? Because when you get to that, the players have skin in the game now. They feel like they’re being heard, and I think they appreciate their opinions being facilitated.”

More than just communication, the modern power play is all about organization. So far this season, Toronto has lacked structure on the man advantage, costing the team key opportunities. From Eakins perspective, the most important thing now is to go back to basics and focus on the simple aspects of what the units should be trying to achieve.

“You need to have a plan when you go out there,” he said. “Power plays march out now going, hey, we’re running play #1 and play #2. When we get in there, that’s what we’re going with right off the bat. So you need to be highly organized. But when things are suffering, I’m a big believer in, like, get right back to basics. How do you score goals on a power play? What are the simplest ways? I think when you get back to basics, that’s a really great starting point in starting something that may turn into something real special down the road.”

Check out the full episode with Dallas Eakins here, and tune into Leafs Morning Take weekdays at 11am on The Leafs Nation’s Youtube channel!