Maple Leafs alter special teams plans ahead of Blackhawks game

It's going to be a critical game for the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night, not just because they need to bounce back after a couple of bad losses against San Jose and Edmonton, but they have to give iconic play-by-play announcer Joe Bowen a proper finish to his evening of celebration.

But if they are going to do so, they need to make sure they have everything in order including their power play; which is as stagnant as ever nowadays.

With only 11 total power play goals all season, the team hasn't been afforded the opportunities nor have they capitalized on the minimal chances they've had.

It's led Craig Berube to make some changes ahead of Tuesday's game, as he wanted to try and spark the offense on the man advantage.

Berube has changed things up with Morgan Rielly back in the fold on the main unit with Auston Matthews and company. He's assisted on five of the team's 11 goals, so it makes sense why he'd be back.

Moving Oliver Ekman-Larsson to the second unit isn't necessarily a death sentence, but Berube needs to use him as much as possible considering he's been the offensive spark plug Toronto's needed.

That second unit is full of speed with McMann and Cowan, and having Nic Roy as your anchor isn't a bad call especially knowing Max Domi is on that line too. They could be the catalyst that gets things going against a weaker Chicago PK unit.

Besides the obvious, that being Auston Matthews hasn't picked things up. He only has three power play points and two goals. If he's being used so heavily on the man advantage he needs to be impactful.

But beyond that, Toronto is also a team who just does not get calls to go their way. While they have guys like Easton Cowan and Steven Lorentz who draw their fair share of penalties, those seem to be few and far between.

And when they do get those chances, it's almost immediately offset by the team taking penalties, with Simon Benoit, Max Domi, and Ekman-Larsson being main offenders. The team needs to play tighter at both ends, and make sure they cause as much chaos as possible.

As we've seen multiple times this season, the only way for Toronto to really succeed is by crashing the net and making life hard for opposing goalies. Throwing shots in front of two or three bodies should be enough to at least give them some more rebound or deflection chances.

Whatever it is they need to do, be it moving Rielly back, using new units, or a new face coming in; they better figure it out or they aren't going to be sticking around in the standings race much longer.