After the Maple Leafs’ latest loss to the Dallas Stars on Sunday night, we wrote the following about the team’s power play:

To repeat ourselves until we’re blue in the face, the Leafs obviously have to come up with something out of four power-play opportunities, and the lack of man-advantage production is absolutely killing them in the standings. Despite the offense drying up of late, the Leafs are still top five in the NHL in five-on-five goals per game this season overall, but the Stars’ Wyatt Johnston has more power-play goals than the entire Leafs roster combined through 35 games. That says it all, and it should really get someone fired.

Well, today, it did get someone fired: Assistant coach Marc Savard has been relieved of his duties, effective immediately.

It was clearly time for the Leafs to bring in a new voice to run their last-placed (13.5%!) man-advantage units; the results are inexcusable, and there was nothing about their process or their metrics that suggested a turnaround was imminent. That said, it is a rare development when an assistant is dismissed mid-season for on-ice results reasons while the rest of the staff carries on. The fact of the matter is that the Leafs‘ five-on-five play is not much better than their power-play results right now, and that falls on the head coach (and GM) in charge.

It was also long past time for the head coach to step in and address the struggling power play itself, so while Savard couldn’t continue in the role any longer, he also doesn’t own 100% of the responsibility for these struggles. To some degree, this is a half-measure, and Savard is the sacrificial lamb/scapegoat. A collaborative coaching staff that is otherwise on its game doesn’t let a special-teams unit sink the team to the degree the power play has this season — particularly with the offensive talent at this team’s disposal — regardless of who the particular point man is. Of course, Savard was also Berube’s handpicked assistant rather than someone he inherited upon his hiring, so the buck ultimately stops with the head coach here.

The player leadership group should also take a dark day like this one — Savard is a beloved character around the room/around the league — to heart and feel shame about it. The lack of strategic adjustments (or any obvious plan whatsoever at this point) isn’t on them, but a unit with William Nylander, Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies, and John Tavares on it should really never score at a 13.5% clip over nearly half a season, regardless of the coach in charge. They’ve been out-battled by the opposing PK units regularly, struggled to get their shots through, and been careless with their puck management/their defensive commitment after turning pucks over. That’s not all on the coach, and a sense of pride should’ve kicked in long ago for the Leafs’ leaders on the ice. The power play, under Savard, turned it around majorly after a slow start last regular season and finished the playoffs at just under 22%, which is nothing special but was an improvement over most of the previous playoffs.

We’ll see how the Leafs delegate the responsibility now, but there is the option to shift the power-play file onto the plate of Derek Lalonde, whose penalty-killing units are excelling through the first half of the season. The PK was his responsibility as an assistant in Tampa as well, but he has at least been around plenty of successful power-play units in his time in the league. On top of the Lightning’s success on the man advantage, the Red Wings were a top 10 power play in Lalonde’s final full season as head coach of the organization in 2023-24. The Red Wings also ranked 11th on the power play when Lalonde was fired on Boxing Day of 2024, 34 games into the 2024-25 season.

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