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NHL NHL Regular Season Easton Cowan has been consistently winning his minutes. He's earned more. Chris Tanouye / Getty Images Injuries have absolutely been a factor in the Maple Leafs’ inconsistent play of late, and for a while now really. Chris Tanev has missed the last 19 games. He hasn’t played at all since Nov. 1. Brandon Carlo has been absent for the last month and won’t return for another month still. Anthony Stolarz’s absence feels indefinite at the moment, though his tandem-mate Joseph Woll figures to be back in the crease imminently after missing the last four games. Advertisement It’s not just an injury thing, though, that’s caused the Leafs to drop three of the last four, including an especially humbling beatdown by the Oilers on Saturday. A major cooldown by the team’s top players is playing a role, too. That was never more evident than in that game over the weekend when Auston Matthews, John Tavares, William Nylander and Matthew Knies were all held in check while Connor Mc David and Leon Draisaitl diced up the Leafs in a game that leapt from close to over in 34 seconds of the third period. Cold streaks are especially plaguing Tavares, Nylander and Knies. The team MVP through the first 20-ish games of the season, Tavares has gone five straight without a goal. He has scored once in his last 10 outings (with only two assists), and twice in the last 13. A first-period breakaway against Tristan Jarry was turned down on Saturday. This isn’t all that surprising. Tavares is 35 for one thing, and his shooting percentage was due to come down (to a still-fiery 14. 9 percent currently). Knies has piled up assists all season, meanwhile, but has struggled to find the same finish that saw him score 29 times last season. He has collected seven goals in 28 games, putting him on pace for 20. Knies has scored once in his last seven games, twice in the last 14, and three times in the last 18. He had a number of quality looks against the Oilers, but failed to score. What’s really going on? The high-danger shooting opportunities that Knies punched in consistently last season aren’t going in these days. Last season, Knies shot a crisp 25. 9 percent on high-danger shots. His 22 high-danger goals were tied for 10th most in the NHL. This season, in the first year of a six-year contract, he is shooting only 12. 5 percent from high-danger zones — also known as around the net. He has only five goals on 40 shots from in close. Then there’s Nylander, who played through illness against Edmonton. Though he continues to lead the team in scoring with 34 points in 27 games, Nylander hasn’t scored in seven games while chipping in with only three assists (two of which came against the Sharks in an overtime defeat on Thursday). Advertisement He’s been held without a shot in three of those seven games. At times, he hasn’t looked healthy, not just over the weekend. Matthews has looked a little more like Matthews since he returned from injury and yet he’s still has collected only seven points in those nine games. He was outplayed by Mc David in the loss to the Oilers and probably earned a draw, at best, in a showdown with Macklin Celebrini two nights earlier. The Leafs won 9 percent of the expected goals in Matthews’ minutes that night. He is on pace for just 62 points this season, which is, well, shocking. 1. What this all points to: A shake-up to the top six is probably in order. Does that mean teaming up Nylander and Matthews, a look that’s still only been briefly explored this season? Splitting Knies from Matthews and playing him with Tavares instead? One thing I’d like to see: More Easton Cowan. He played just under 13 minutes against Edmonton and still scored the first Leafs goal. Only linemate Steven Lorentz played less. Cowan logged not even 11 minutes two nights before that against San Jose. When he’s on the ice, good things seem to happen for the Leafs as when he helped set up a Morgan Rielly goal against the Lightning on Monday night. The Leafs are generating nearly three expected goals per 60 minutes when he’s out there at five on five, the top mark on the team. The Leafs’ most effective line all season, in terms of expected goals, featured Cowan alongside Matthews and Knies. It was only 40 minutes, but the Leafs crushed teams, winning 75 percent of the expected goals. Actual goals were 2-0. One combo that might be worth a look (but which might come with some defensive downsides): Cowan next to Matthews and Nylander. 2. Cowan ranks fourth on the Leafs in point rate at five on five (2. 1 per 60), trailing only Knies, Nylander and Tavares. Advertisement The Leafs are generating 12. 7 high-danger attempts per 60 in his minutes, which trails only Nylander (13. 6) among the team’s forwards. They are giving up only 8. 4 attempts per 60 against, the top mark among the forwards. Only one Leaf up front has a possession mark above 50 percent this season and that would also be Cowan. That doesn’t feel like an accident with his ability to hound pucks and disrupt play. 3. Is Berube willing to break up the current top line of Knies, Matthews and Max Domi? I’m not sure. “That line is starting to form some chemistry, offensively, for me, ” the Leafs coach said on Saturday morning. “But I still think there’s more for that line. We’re trying to get more out of them. ” Statistically speaking, that line hasn’t been all that successful this season in a fairly robust sample of 104 minutes: Shot attempts: 87-116

Shots: 50-50

High-danger attempts: 24-23

Goals: 3-4

Expected goals percentage: 45. 6 percent And that’s all with an offensive-zone faceoff percentage of 63 percent. 4. That gets to one little tweak that Berube appears to have made recently: more cushy starting assignments for Matthews’ line. Matthews’ offensive-zone faceoff percentage in the last five games: 70 percent, 75 percent, 64 percent, 42 percent and 67 percent. The Leafs coach is leaning more on lines led by Scott Laughton and Nic Roy for defensive-zone duties in his place. 5. We know that Knies played through an injury of some kind earlier this season and that may be why he seems to lack the same burst as last season. His top speed during the 2024-25 season: 37. 2 kph. His top speed this season: 35. 5 kph. Knies has had only one burst of more than 35 kph all season and that came way back on Oct. 18 against Seattle. 6. The Morgan Rielly-Oliver Ekman-Larsson pairing, after some encouraging play, had a ton of problems against Edmonton. Advertisement More of a sore spot for the Leafs at the moment is the bottom pair, which keeps changing in the wake of injuries and poor performance. The latest look, a clunky one at that, has featured Henry Thrun, a Marlie until recently, playing his off side next to Simon Benoit. Shot attempts are 29-15 for the opposition in the 21 minutes they’ve logged in two games together. The Leafs lack options. Dakota Mermis is injured alongside Tanev and Carlo and Philippe Myers has struggled mightily next to Benoit. 7. Low key in the absence of Tanev, his usual super shot blocking partner, Jake Mc Cabe has been stepping into shots aplenty. He blocked five Oiler attempts and is tussling with Colton Parayko and Brayden Mc Nabb for the NHL lead with 80 blocks overall this season. 8. Mc Cabe and Troy Stecher continue to do good business: The twosome’s primary assignment on Saturday was Mc David’s line. Their secondary assignment was the line led by Leon Draisaitl. In their eight minutes together against Mc David, the Leafs captured 61 percent of the expected goals. (Mc David banked a shot off Stecher for Edmonton’s second goal. ) In their four minutes together against Draisaitl, the Leafs took home 68 percent of the expected goals. What a story that pairing is becoming. 9. The Leafs have scored the fewest power-play goals (11) in the league this season. Part of the problem is a familiar one: Not enough opportunities. Just 77 power plays for the Leafs in all, the second fewest in the NHL. They had only one against the Oilers. The Sharks, by comparison, have drawn a league-leading 118 power plays. 10. Is Matias Maccelli just not going to play again? Maccelli has been a healthy scratch in eight of the last nine games. He hasn’t played, period, since Nov. 28 in Washington. It wasn’t going great for Maccelli. And yet, some of the best lines, by the numbers anyway, included the 24-year-old. It’s time to give him another shot. –Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, NHL EDGE, and Evolving Hockey Jonas Siegel is a staff writer on the Maple Leafs for The Athletic. Jonas previously covered the Leafs for TSN and AM 640. He was also the national hockey writer for the Canadian Press. Follow Jonas on Twitter @jonassiegel