<p>The Toronto Maple Leafs&#8217; power play was nowhere to be found in a 3-0 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. How many times has that first line been typed in an article this season? Take the over.</p>
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<p>You&#8217;re probably sick of reading about it, but rest assured that people are sick of talking about it, too. The Maple Leafs&#8217; power play struggled worse than they have all season on Saturday night, and while 0-for-3 isn&#8217;t a gigantic sample size compared to other games, it was more a matter of how lifeless they looked.</p>
<p>There have been games where they&#8217;ve been firing on all cylinders and have either fallen victim to a hot goalie or an outstanding team defensive effort from the opponent, but tonight wasn&#8217;t one of them. It was akin to watching a bad scene in a worse movie replay itself over and over, screaming at the protagonist to call the police and repeatedly watching them chase the killer into the house instead.</p>
<p>Craig Berube was screaming at his team to move the puck more at morning skate Saturday morning, but it&#8217;s evident that the message didn&#8217;t get through to the team. Each of the zone entries went as follows – initial breakout attempt, drop pass to a stationary forward in the middle, restart breakout after the opponent&#8217;s penalty has settled in, get stripped of the puck, chase it back into their own zone, rinse and repeat.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s one thing if you&#8217;re struggling to get pucks on net and the bounces just aren&#8217;t going your way, and it&#8217;s another thing if you&#8217;re struggling to connect with your teammates. When you&#8217;re battling both of those issues combined and your answer is to try the same strategy over and over again, you&#8217;ve got a problem that likely requires a factory reset. And frankly, the Leafs should be pulling the trigger on this factory reset next time they&#8217;re on the ice for practice.</p>
<p>The Leafs have put a clear emphasis on team defence heading into this season under Berube&#8217;s new philosophy, which should be celebrated. But improving in one area doesn&#8217;t mean you can let your guard down in another. Auston Matthews scored 69 goals last year. Mitch Marner has sniffed 100 points in just about every season in recent memory. William Nylander scored 40 goals in back-to-back seasons and is on track to do so again this season. John Tavares found an extra gear when many expected regression and is a point-per-game player. And Morgan Rielly, for all the flak he takes for the defensive side of the game, has shown that he can be a 60-plus point defenceman. There is simply too much talent on this roster for this to continue.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s hard to think of many other takeaways outside of the sputtering power play, but let&#8217;s take a shot at it anyway.</p>
<ul>
<li>It almost feels like I&#8217;m dogpiling on the power play with this take, but overall, the complacency from the top down spanned beyond the lifeless power play. Arun Srinivasan put it best in the <a href="https://theleafsnation.com/news/knee-jerk-reaction-complacency-dormant-power-play-leafs-loss-canucks">Knee Jerk Reaction</a> following the game. <em>&#8220;It started from behind the bench. Toronto started its fourth line of Connor Dewar, David Kampf and Steven Lorentz, and while the line won its 14-second matchup, it was a puzzling call from head coach Craig Berube. Dennis Hildeby was the right choice to start Saturday’s contest, but with the admission that he was in the net to alleviate Joseph Woll’s workload, with the Dallas Stars coming to town on Tuesday, it was a sign that the Leafs thought they could beat the Canucks with a sub-optimal effort.&#8221; </em>Considering how much of an issue the narrative of playing down to lesser opponents was last season, it&#8217;s not a good look.</li>
<li>Dennis Hildeby wasn&#8217;t great, and his stats on the season (3.18 goals-against average, .884 save percentage) don&#8217;t look great across the five games he&#8217;s appeared in. But he shouldn&#8217;t take much flak for the loss if any. It could have been said about Joseph Woll&#8217;s poor performance on Thursday night in Carolina and it can be said about Hildeby tonight. It was a matter of the offence going dry when their goaltender needed a hand despite how many times the latter has bailed out the former this season.</li>
<li>There&#8217;s a genuine need for Berube to throw things into the blender, and I mean actually throw them into the blender. It was great to see him recognize that the top six wasn&#8217;t working as constructed, but mixing things up mid-game and then reverting to normalcy the next day doesn&#8217;t accomplish anything beyond maybe an immediate spark. Marner and Tavares were dynamite together while Matthews was injured, so you can start there. And, for once, change up the power play units. Give them a legitimate fresh look and split their usage so that teams have to prepare for something beyond simply shutting down Matthews and Marner. We&#8217;ve seen the even-strength lines as is and the power play units run dry in the postseason, and after first round exits in seven of the last eight years ailed by said power play issues, there&#8217;s no reason to believe anything will be different come April.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Maple Leafs are back in action on Tuesday night when they host the Dallas Stars and look to sweep the season series.</p>
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The Toronto Maple Leafs' power play was nowhere to be found in a 3-0 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. How many times has that first line been typed in an article this season? Take the over.
<div class="bam-inline-promotion-block" data-max-length="2" data-placement-id="2106" data-context="web-content-promocard" data-property-id="324"></div>
You're probably sick of reading about it, but rest assured that people are sick of talking about it, too. The Maple Leafs' power play struggled worse than they have all season on Saturday night, and while 0-for-3 isn't a gigantic sample size compared to other games, it was more a matter of how lifeless they looked.

There have been games where they've been firing on all cylinders and have either fallen victim to a hot goalie or an outstanding team defensive effort from the opponent, but tonight wasn't one of them. It was akin to watching a bad scene in a worse movie replay itself over and over, screaming at the protagonist to call the police and repeatedly watching them chase the killer into the house instead.

Craig Berube was screaming at his team to move the puck more at morning skate Saturday morning, but it's evident that the message didn't get through to the team. Each of the zone entries went as follows – initial breakout attempt, drop pass to a stationary forward in the middle, restart breakout after the opponent's penalty has settled in, get stripped of the puck, chase it back into their own zone, rinse and repeat.

It's one thing if you're struggling to get pucks on net and the bounces just aren't going your way, and it's another thing if you're struggling to connect with your teammates. When you're battling both of those issues combined and your answer is to try the same strategy over and over again, you've got a problem that likely requires a factory reset. And frankly, the Leafs should be pulling the trigger on this factory reset next time they're on the ice for practice.

The Leafs have put a clear emphasis on team defence heading into this season under Berube's new philosophy, which should be celebrated. But improving in one area doesn't mean you can let your guard down in another. Auston Matthews scored 69 goals last year. Mitch Marner has sniffed 100 points in just about every season in recent memory. William Nylander scored 40 goals in back-to-back seasons and is on track to do so again this season. John Tavares found an extra gear when many expected regression and is a point-per-game player. And Morgan Rielly, for all the flak he takes for the defensive side of the game, has shown that he can be a 60-plus point defenceman. There is simply too much talent on this roster for this to continue.

It's hard to think of many other takeaways outside of the sputtering power play, but let's take a shot at it anyway.
<ul>
 	<li>It almost feels like I'm dogpiling on the power play with this take, but overall, the complacency from the top down spanned beyond the lifeless power play. Arun Srinivasan put it best in the <a href="https://theleafsnation.com/news/knee-jerk-reaction-complacency-dormant-power-play-leafs-loss-canucks">Knee Jerk Reaction</a> following the game. <em>"It started from behind the bench. Toronto started its fourth line of Connor Dewar, David Kampf and Steven Lorentz, and while the line won its 14-second matchup, it was a puzzling call from head coach Craig Berube. Dennis Hildeby was the right choice to start Saturday’s contest, but with the admission that he was in the net to alleviate Joseph Woll’s workload, with the Dallas Stars coming to town on Tuesday, it was a sign that the Leafs thought they could beat the Canucks with a sub-optimal effort." </em>Considering how much of an issue the narrative of playing down to lesser opponents was last season, it's not a good look.</li>
 	<li>Dennis Hildeby wasn't great, and his stats on the season (3.18 goals-against average, .884 save percentage) don't look great across the five games he's appeared in. But he shouldn't take much flak for the loss if any. It could have been said about Joseph Woll's poor performance on Thursday night in Carolina and it can be said about Hildeby tonight. It was a matter of the offence going dry when their goaltender needed a hand despite how many times the latter has bailed out the former this season.</li>
 	<li>There's a genuine need for Berube to throw things into the blender, and I mean actually throw them into the blender. It was great to see him recognize that the top six wasn't working as constructed, but mixing things up mid-game and then reverting to normalcy the next day doesn't accomplish anything beyond maybe an immediate spark. Marner and Tavares were dynamite together while Matthews was injured, so you can start there. And, for once, change up the power play units. Give them a legitimate fresh look and split their usage so that teams have to prepare for something beyond simply shutting down Matthews and Marner. We've seen the even-strength lines as is and the power play units run dry in the postseason, and after first round exits in seven of the last eight years ailed by said power play issues, there's no reason to believe anything will be different come April.</li>
</ul>
The Maple Leafs are back in action on Tuesday night when they host the Dallas Stars and look to sweep the season series.

<strong>Sponsored by bet365</strong>
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