Maple Leafs are slow, Auston Matthews needs to step up and Chinakhov shouldn’t be a trade target: Leaflets

As the highlights of Blue Jays baseball leave the Toronto landscape in November, the Maple Leafs are in for a rude awakening. If you’ve been following hockey out of the corner of your eye, a 5-5-1 start falls into the sweet spot of disappointing but not overly concerning. You can look at the Panthers, Lightning, and Oilers as others slow down the gate teams that will eventually figure it out, but the Panthers can count on getting Matthew Tkachuk back, they might get Barkov back for the playoffs, and the Oilers are days away from Zach Hyman bolstering their offense. The Lightning… well, maybe they’re in a similar situation to the Leafs and if that’s the case, MLSE should be ready at a moment’s notice to throw a bag of money at Jon Cooper in case they do the ultimate stupid thing.

If there was a point in that introduction, it’s likely that the Leafs look worse than their record. The only teams they played in the playoffs last season were the Canadiens and Devils, and they fell flat against some disappointing competition. That should be a concern.

Slowly and steadily he wins the draft lottery

The Leafs haven’t exactly been speedsters in recent seasons either, ranking in the middle of the league as a contrast to the top 10 or even top 5 status they enjoyed in the first few years of NHL Edge tracking. You could argue that they either chase the puck less, play better positionally, or are more comfortable stripping their opponents of the puck as possible reasons why speed doesn’t matter, but those interpretations don’t quite match what our eyes tell us either.

The Leafs are older and the speed fades with age. Morgan Rielly is a good example of a player who has seen his speed disappear in recent seasons and last year it was a real hindrance, especially when combined with Rielly’s lock-down to make safer passes that further slowed the Leafs puck movement.

The Leafs haven’t done much to compensate for their loss of speed. Of their players with speed bursts over 22 miles per hour, only William Nylander and Jake McCabe have done so in the 30+ year old group this year, while Bobby McMann, Simon Benoit and Nick Robertson are the only others, with McMann and Benoit the closest to regular fast burst options on the Leafs.

Similar to the restrictions on Rielly’s passing last season, having a quick puck mover like Marner further slows the team down and makes the Leafs easier to play against. Whether speed is the priority for the Leafs or not, the absence of speed in their game is one more thing that makes them a more beatable opponent.

Teams can win without speed, but the question is whether or not the Leafs are built to be one of those teams.

Auston Matthews’ slow start

Five goals in eleven games doesn’t look alarming until you remember who it is and seven goals is the target for Matthews to become a 50-goal player in an 82-game season. Matthews could easily score a hat trick on Saturday and all is right in the world, but right now health, lack of Marner and a $13.4 million AAV contract hang over his head and it’s worth noting he has yet to combine statistical success with the captaincy.

It seems like the mentality surrounding Matthews up until last season has always been “The Maple Leafs are fortunate to have this generational (or almost generational) talent in their lineup” and wonder at both his offensive ability and his responsibility in his own zone always made it seem like Matthews in a Leafs uniform was a dream.

The cold water is that Matthews had his worst offensive season last year. He has never been a playoff performer and the last few seasons have been particularly bad. A slow start in 2025-2026 comes with new concerns, and the absence of longtime collaborator Mitch Marner and the struggle to find the right fit in Matthew’s line are part of that.

Adding a healthy William Nylander next to Auston should give the Leafs a boost. The Leafs have a clear need for a consistent top six player, and even elite players are allowed to have a slow start to the season, but in a year where the Leafs asked everyone to step up, their captain wasn’t one of the players to do so.

Yegor Chinakhov is not the answer

Who looks at this team and says they need more Nick Robertsons?

That’s not to say Nick Robertson has been bad, in fact over the past few games you can point to Robertson as a bright spot. The question is more about the needs of the Maple Leafs top six forwards: what’s the solution for a player who might have a chance to become one if the change of scenery strategy works, and assuming Chinakhov is what he is, a streaked secondary scorer who plays about ten minutes a night would get an offense on a team that already has Matias Maccelli, Max Domi, Nick Robertson, Bobby McMann and Dakota Joshua producing very similar results.

Chinakhov is slightly taller than Robertson. His numbers are slightly better than Robertson’s. Size doesn’t really matter in this situation, as Chinakhov has no interest in being a physical player. You’d probably get more physicality out of Robertson. You’d probably be better off skating out of Robertson.

Chinakhov’s higher cap hit, plus the fact that the Blue Jackets don’t seem interested in a one-for-one trade involving Robertson, begs the question of why the Leafs are even considering him as a trade target. Similar to the moves involving Scott Laughton, Joel Edmundson and others, this feels like Brad Treliving is setting the bar too low and “making an educated wish” for a player stepping up his game on the Maple Leafs.