By Ian Tulloch



There’s been a lot of talk about the Leafs’ recent power play struggles, and for good reason. Since Jan. 1, the team is ranked 29th in PP%. This is a far cry from a team that finished second in the league in power play efficiency last year, and was actually fifth in the NHL this season prior to Jan. 1. Clearly things have taken a dramatic turn for the worse, so how can we explain this colossal shift in production?



Let’s start by breaking down the performance of each power play unit.



The Marner unit



The Leafs have run two distinct PP units since the kids burst onto the scene last year. One unit runs through Marner, the other one runs through Matthews and Nylander. These units are very different in how they try to break down opposing penalty kills, so to address the Leafs’ power play properly, we need to analyze each unit separately. We’re going to start with the Marner unit.







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