Playoff statistics say it all about Leafs’ stars lack of production
Leon Draisaitl is a playoff monster, the likes of which hockey has rarely seen before.
The last three seasons he’s played 35 playoff games for the forever questioned Edmonton Oilers — some of them while nursing an injury of some kind.
In those 35 games, he’s scored 66 points. That’s 155-point regular season pace for a player who scores at 97-point pace in the regular season for his career.
Draisaitl is paid US$8.5 million a year by the Oilers, $2.5 million less than the Toronto Maple Leafs pay John Tavares, $2.4 million less than they pay Mitch Marner, $3 million less than the Leafs will pay William Nylander next season.
In the past 35 playoff games, when Draisaitl was scoring 66 points playing with or without Connor Mcdavid, Matthews wound up with 35 for the Leafs in the same number of games, Marner scored 33, Nylander 32 and captain Tavares at 24.
Combined, Marner and Nylander were one point less than Draisaitl by himself.
Mcdavid and Draisaitl have combined for 136 points in Edmonton’s past 35 games — and if the Oilers depth holds up, which may not be possible, they might win a Stanley Cup one of these years.
Matthews and Marner have combined, in comparison, for 68 points. Nylander and Tavares have combined for 56 points. You don’t have to look far to see why the Leafs don’t score in the playoffs. They have yet to discover one of those playoff monsters — the kind Doug Gilmour was in 1993 and 1994 in Toronto, the kind Nikita Kucherov has been, scoring 93 points in the past three playoff seasons for Tampa, the way Cale Maker and Nathan Mackinnon combined for 53 points in 20 games in Colorado’s recent Stanley Cup season.
I get asked all the time: Why are you so hard on Marner? Here’s why.
Great players are supposed to change games come playoff time. Marner scored 44 post-season points in 18 games as a London Knight in his last year of junior hockey. He was a game changer.
He has played 57 Stanley Cup games for the Maple Leafs with 50 points contributed, just 11 of them goals.
Can you remember a game-changing, serieschanging, Draisaitl-on-fire kind of performance from Marner at playoff time in any year? Has he taken your breath away? Has he done the impossible?
At almost $11 million a year, he’s supposed to do that. He’s paid to do that.
Mcdavid came back from no shots on goal in Game 1 against Vancouver to score four points in Game 2. That’s what Marner has never done. His salary says he’s better than Draisaitl. On the ice, when it matters, no comparison at all.
Altering the Leafs roster is the great challenge of this off-season with so little financial flexibility. They may have to get a little worse, short term, to get better long term. This is the season, coming up, in which the contracts of Marner and Tavares expire. They will try to deal both of those players — if either is willing to be dealt. The question is, what can you get for Tavares besides salary-cap space? And how much can you get for Marner when dealing from a position of weakness? ... I do know this much: There is interest from other teams in both Marner and Tavares. Interest is one thing. What they’re willing to give up to take on an $11-million player, that’s the better question.
Usually the first round of the playoffs is sensational and it diminishes each round after that. This year, the first round was unspectacular but the second round has been terrific to date. And next round if you’re looking at Panthers vs. Rangers or Oilers vs. either Stars or Avalanche, that could be even better ... The Argos’ handling of the Chad Kelly situation has been questionable from the beginning. But what really set people off was that Kelly, now suspended for violating the CFL’S gender-based policy, was at practice in rookie camp at the University of Guelph. Like nothing happened. Problem with this is the Argos don’t seem to accept the gravity of the situation and the league itself, through negotiations with the Players’ Association, has deemed it’s OK for Kelly to be front and centre. It isn’t. However, the Argonauts opened training camp on Sunday without Kelly. “Chad Kelly is currently not participating in team activities,” the Argos said in a statement. “The team’s focus is on training camp activities with the players available. Future updates will be provided as warranted.” ... Canadian QB Nathan Rourke has been claimed on waivers by the New York Giants, whose pro scout, Chris Rossetti, happens to be Canadian. So is head coach, Brian Daboll. So is vice-president of football operations, Kevin Abrams. If Rourke doesn’t get a decent shot with the Giants, he won’t get one anywhere ... And if the Argos were smart, they’d be watching Rourke closely and offering him the moon should he become available. They can pay him Kelly money, even more, if he comes available and they move on from Kelly as the tattered face of the franchise.
I saw this statistic online Friday: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is fifth in all of baseball in hitting the ball the hardest. When that translates to runs scored, call me ... If Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins aren’t embarrassed by this year’s Blue Jays, they should be. Nice stadium, though.
The first year of the PWHL came with some peril. Organizers of the league had no idea what attendance would be like. Toronto just played its first two playoff games to sold out houses at Coca-cola Coliseum, more than 8,000 tickets sold per night, and live gates of more than $2 million in total with another round of playoffs to come. Those numbers are beyond what anyone could have expected for a first year product ... And those numbers tell me that Toronto will do boffo business when the WNBA comes to town in 2026. The rise in women’s sport as a live product — the Caitlin Clark factor — has moved everything to another level.