The Toronto Maple Leafs have struggled this season on the penalty kill, but their power play has generally been proficient.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have struggled this season on the penalty kill, but their power play has generally been proficient.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have struggled this season on the penalty kill, but their power play has generally been proficient.
On Saturday, the club's power-play made a key mistake and it led to the Buffalo Sabres' second goal of the game that helped give them their first lead on Toronto.
Maple Leafs defenseman John Klingberg executes a pass backwards through traffic to Auston Matthews. Matthews then passes to Mitch Marner who attempts to pass right back to Matthews, but Sabres forward Tage Thompson intercepts the attempt.
Thompson went on to score on his second whack at Maple Leafs goaltender Joseph Woll that gave Buffalo a 2-1 lead.
"Just a sh*t show, really," Marner said of the play. "No speed by me and obviously we have game plans coming in here about what we want to do and try to do on the power play trying to execute it. Sometimes it just ends up (better to do the safer play.
Although the Maple Leafs are currently fifth the NHL with a power play success rate of 29 percent, the club has allowed three shorthanded goals through 11 games this season. However, the Leafs did kill a 5-on-3 for 1:34. before Thompson's goal.
Things are worse for the Leafs while shorthanded. They are tied for 21st in the NHL with a 75 percent penalty kill rate.
The Leafs have been trying different personnel on the PK after losing Alex Kerfoot and Sam Lafferty among many others that ate up some time.
But on Saturday, the Leafs were bad in just about every area of the game. At even strength, the Sabres had a 66 percent expected-goals rate, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
"Obviously too many careless plays." Marner admitted Saturday. "(We) gave them free looks around our net. Team’s got a lot of offence and a lot of great players who can score. So they did it tonight."
The Maple Leafs are winless in four consecutive games after losing the Sabres 6-4 on Saturday.
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