Maple Leafs Power Play: Alfredsson's Fix Starts With Faceoffs

Alfredsson's Maple Leafs Power Play Plan Starts With Faceoffs

The Maple Leafs power play finished 25th in the NHL last season at 16.8 per cent, and the man hired to fix it spent this week describing a solution that sounds nothing like a new formation. Daniel Alfredsson, brought in as associate coach on July 7, says the repair work lives in the parts of a man advantage nobody puts on a highlight reel: faceoffs, edge battles along the wall, and getting the puck back before the penalty kill can reset.

That is a more interesting answer than it looks. It is also, on the evidence of last season, the correct one.

What Alfredsson Said About the Power Play

Asked this week about his role on the man advantage, Alfredsson described it as a central part of his interview process in Toronto — not an afterthought bolted onto a staff hire. He noted that head coach Jim Hiller is himself a power-play coach, and that the Leafs had both good and difficult stretches with the extra man last season, to the point where the group probably lost some confidence along the way.

Then came the specific part. Alfredsson said that what he improved most in Ottawa, particularly on special teams, was all the small structures — faceoffs, winning edge battles, getting pucks back quickly — and that is what he hopes to keep developing in Toronto.

Coaches say a lot of things in September. This one is worth taking seriously because it is falsifiable. Faceoff wins, retrieval rate and zone-time per power play are all measurable within a month of the season starting. Alfredsson has effectively told everyone what to grade him on.

Why the Diagnosis Fits the Numbers

Toronto ran at 24.8 per cent with the man advantage in 2024-25 and 16.8 per cent a year later. Teams do not shed eight percentage points in a single season purely because the pucks stopped going in. Something structural broke, and we went through the full accounting of how the Maple Leafs power play fell apart earlier this month.

The short version: the unit stopped controlling the start of its own possessions. A two-minute advantage is not two minutes of offence. It is a series of possessions, each one beginning with either a draw or a retrieval. Lose the opening faceoff, concede a clear, and you have spent 20 to 30 seconds regrouping at your own blue line and skating back up the ice. Do that twice in one power play and the unit gets roughly 50 seconds of actual offensive-zone work out of 120.

That is the difference between a top-10 power play and a bottom-10 one more often than shot quality is. Alfredsson naming faceoffs and retrievals first is not coach-speak filler. It is the part of the problem a coach can actually move.

The William Nylander Question

The most talked-about consequence of the hire is what it means for William Nylander, and Nylander himself has been open about the relationship. He has said it is the first time in the NHL he has spoken Swedish with a coach, and that he already knew Alfredsson from the Four Nations Face-Off, where Alfredsson coached him with Team Sweden. His public assessment was blunt and positive: he likes working with him.

That matters more than it sounds. Nylander is the Leafs' most creative power-play forward and, in a structure that emphasizes quick retrievals and sustained pressure, he is also the player whose habits are most likely to be renegotiated. A unit built on fast puck recovery needs its most skilled winger engaged in the recovery, not floating for the one-timer.

Our read: if Alfredsson's structure works, Nylander's power-play assist totals should climb before his goal totals do. The first sign of a functioning unit is not a highlight shot. It is Nylander touching the puck four times in a possession instead of once.

Gavin McKenna Is Being Kept Off the Top Unit on Purpose

The other power-play storyline of camp is where the first overall pick fits. Hiller has been unambiguous that Gavin McKenna starts on the second unit, framing it as protection rather than a verdict — the staff does not want to add pressure, they want him started in the NHL, and there will be a chance over time.

That is defensible, and it is also a luxury a team with a functioning top unit gets to have. If PP1 is still converting at 17 per cent in November, the argument for keeping an 18-year-old with McKenna's distribution instincts on the second wave collapses quickly. Alfredsson's job security and McKenna's power-play promotion are the same story told from two ends.

Two Coaches, One Unit

Alfredsson's point that Hiller is also a power-play coach is the quiet risk in all of this. Shared ownership of a special-teams unit can mean two experienced voices sharpening each other, or it can mean players getting two sets of reads on the same entry.

Toronto's staff was rebuilt almost entirely this summer — Alfredsson, John Gruden and Brad Werenka arrived on the same day, under a head coach in his first season with the club and a general manager, John Chayka, who had been on the job for about two months at that point. Everyone in that room is new to each other. The power play is where that unfamiliarity will show up first, because it is the most choreographed thing an NHL team does.

The counterweight is that Alfredsson was a serious candidate for the head job before Hiller got it, and the club came back to him with a staff offer anyway. That is not the profile of a coach who gets overruled on his specialty.

The Penalty Kill Was Never the Issue

It is worth keeping the scale of the problem honest. Toronto's penalty kill finished at 83.5 per cent last season, fifth in the league. The special-teams deficit is entirely one-sided.

That is the most encouraging fact available to Leafs fans right now, because it means the largest single performance gap on the roster requires no trade, no cap space and no rookie exceeding expectations. It requires one unit that was among the best in hockey two years ago to get back to league average. Everything else Chayka did this summer cost money. This one is free.

What's Next

Toronto has preseason games remaining against Ottawa before the roster is due on Sept. 28, and the regular season opens at home against Montreal on Sept. 29. Preseason power-play reps are close to worthless as a predictor — the personnel is wrong and the penalty kills are junior-league — so the first honest look at Alfredsson's unit arrives in October.

Watch three things when it does: faceoff win rate on power-play draws, how often the unit gains the zone on the first attempt, and whether Nylander's touches per possession go up. Those move before the conversion rate does. You can track the roster as it settles on our players page and the cap picture behind it on the contracts page.

Alfredsson has told everyone exactly what he is trying to build. The nice thing about a specific promise is that it can be checked.