TORONTO – Quick, someone get on this: A red-zone inspired channel reserved just for Toronto Maple Leafs power plays.
It’s a can’t-miss concept in a league that can always use more goals.
We are on the precipice of a season where very few NHL teams appear capable of scoring at a rate like the Leafs can. Winnipeg, Tampa and Pittsburgh are in that mix. Perhaps Boston or Nashville will join them. Toronto looks destined to inflict much of its damage with the man advantage – what with John Tavares now in the fold and Auston Matthews elevated to a punishing PP1.
Those players only dressed in two pre-season games together and the Leafs scored five power-play goals, including one on a pretty Matthews-to-Tavares feed in Friday’s 6-2 victory over the Detroit Red Wings.
"Really it was easy," said Tavares of his strike during a 5-on-3.
The Red Wings put on a clinic in what not to do – as in, don’t put yourself down two men against an opponent that can throw Matthews, Tavares, Mitch Marner, Nazem Kadri and Morgan Rielly over the boards.
Given his lethal release, the penalty killers had no choice but to shade Matthews as he skated towards the slot with the puck on his stick. He made the job even tougher by looking them off before sliding the puck down to a wide-open Tavares.
"Any time Matts gets that kind of time and space, I think you know he’s going to make the right play and find the open man," said Tavares. "It’s not just finding the guy, but I think it’s the ability to get the goalie and get the opponent to be drawn into what he’s doing.
"Then he puts it on a tee for me and it’s at the right pace and the right spot."
"Credit to him: He got in a really good lane," added Matthews. "I mean I had all day. I knew he was there and he got open."
It’s not a coincidence that they sound like the newest members of the mutual admiration society. There is still a general giddiness emanating from the Leafs’ dressing room after head coach Mike Babcock bucked his past practice and loaded up the top unit.
Now, context is important here. It’s still just pre-season, of course, and the 5-for-12 success rate was built against Montreal and Detroit teams that will probably be closer to the Atlantic Division basement than its penthouse.
But it’s not unreasonable to forecast some potentially significant gains on specialty teams, especially since the Leafs were second overall in the NHL with a 25 per cent proficiency last season and have added two 40-goal men in Tavares and Matthews to the top unit.
Heck, the PP2 should be no slouch either once William Nylander signs a contract and rejoins the team. Patrick Marleau and Jake Gardiner each struck from that 5-on-4 group against Detroit, giving them a 2-1 edge in the game and some temporary bragging rights.
Earlier in the week, he joked with reporters that everyone had things mixed up because he’s really quarterbacking PP1.
"The first unit will also try to do some damage too," he said.
Based on the early returns, it would be no surprise if the Leafs challenged the modern-day bests of this era – the 26.8 per cent by Washington in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season and Pittsburgh’s 26.2 per cent last year.
They have the right mix of personnel and coaching to do it – with assistant Jim Hiller consistently overseeing high-end PP’s. The biggest thing Babcock believes they need to guard against is getting too cute and abandoning the intended structure.
"You do the same thing over and over and over again and then you score over and over again," he said. "The more you ad-lib, the less you score. Now not at the start because you can blow the puck by the goalie [in pre-season]. You can do some things at the start because they haven’t watched hours of video on you, breaking you down."
They will be getting to work on that now.
Tavares would like to see PP1 do a better job of gaining the offensive zone and finding formation – "I think we can be a little smoother coming up the ice," he said – but it’s hard to quibble with the results once they get there.
The Leafs are good and they know it. It took just four minutes for them to pump home three power-play goals and a Par Lindholm shorty on Friday night.
"We can score," said Matthews. "That’s always a good thing."
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