Toronto Maple Leafs' forward Mitch Marner passing up on a perfect opportunity to shoot with a wide open net in front of him.

Photo credit: B/R Open Ice Twitter

Mitch Marner’s unwillingness to shoot the puck in last night’s game encapsulates everything that is wrong with the Toronto Maple Leafs’ power play.

What should be the Maple Leafs’ bread and butter has become a weakness over the last calendar year, which is puzzling, given the firepower in Toronto on their top PP unit.

After last night’s contest, the power play is now 3 for 30 in 9 games and going back to February 27th of the 2023-24 season, the Leafs’ man advantage has gone 13 for 124, according to Chris Johnston, which comes out to a miniscule 10.48% success rate.

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To put that into perspective, the Philadelphia Flyers owned the worst power play in the league last year at 12.2%, and considering their lack of talent, it makes the Leafs’ power play woes look exponentially worse and very much unacceptable.

This season, the Leafs started 0 for 11 with the man advantage before lighting the lamp twice against the Los Angeles Kings, but have gone 1 for 19 since, and unsurprisingly, have posted a 1-3-1 record in the process. When players like Mitch Marner are passing up wide open nets for prettier passing plays, something needs to change.

During a critical 5-on-3 in a tied game in the first period, the Maple Leafs were zipping passes around but were unwilling to get shots off. They failed to take a shot during Morgan Geekie’s minor but with John Beecher joining him in the box, the Leafs woke up and got a couple pucks towards Jeremy Swayman.

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As Carlo Colaiacovo points out, however, with a wide-open cage, Swayman completely out of position, and the defender not in-line to block the shot, Marner opted to pass it off instead of putting the puck in the wide open cage. While he collected 3 assists in the game to give him a team-high 10 points on the year, it’s situations like this that drive the city and its fan base nuts.

With a struggling power play, simplification is of the utmost importance, but the Leafs seem more content with whipping passes around then firing shots towards the net. With the likes of Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares, and Morgan Rielly among others, it’s unacceptable to have just 3 power play goals to start the year and 10 goals in their last 35 regular season contests, going back to February 27th.

For reference there are 12 NHL players either on pace or out-pacing the Leafs power play units this year, singlehandedly. Embarrassing stuff happening in Toronto right now, and something’s gotta give.