Maple Leafs may have found the fix for Auston Matthews' declining production

With the additions of Nick Paul, Colton Sissons, and Teddy Blueger, the Maple Leafs have found the solution to Auston Matthews' declining level of production.

Focusing on improving the bottom-six was imperative for John Chayka if he wanted to turn the Maple Leafs into a contender. Needing to replace aging veterans like Calle Jarnkrok and also having to find someone to replace Max Domi up the middle, the team went on a shopping spree.

In came a group of bottom-six forces who are expected to add much more physicality, defence, aggression and protection for the stars, while also helping to make life more miserable for opponents.

Toronto's new trio of defensive menaces open the door for Auston Matthews to thrive

Nick Paul, Colton Sissons, and Teddy Blueger are all players who were acquired with not only the goal of transforming the bottom-six, but providing some much needed relief on the penalty kill - more specifically - to give Auston Matthews a well-deserved break.

One issue that was always a factor under Craig Berube since he arrived in Toronto was his decision to take the offensively gifted Matthews and try to turn him into a defensive centre. Gone were the consistent offensive zone opportunities and in came defensive responsibilities and sacrificing his natural ability for the sake of a coaching system.

A system that was hit or miss at best and gave Matthews two of his worst offensive outputs that also could have factored into why he was injured so much the past two seasons.

In 2024-25, Matthews started 46.1% of defensive zone starts, and had 42.2% in 2025-26. Prior to that, his highest ever in his career was 43.3%...back in 2017-18. We're nearly a decade after that and he was hovering around 33% the rest of the time.

From 2021-22 until 2023-24, Matthews had 169 goals and zero shorthanded goals. Sheldon Keefe knew what he was doing and it led to Matthews having two 60-goal seasons in three years; clearly there's a pattern here.

Sissons has started nearly 70% of all his starts in the defensive zone, meanwhile Paul has 62.2% and Blueger has a 74.4% for their careers. Obviously they know their role and play it well. For the PK? Sissons has a 97.3% defensive zone start rate - he's the go-to guy meanwhile Paul has a 96.2% and Blueger has a 95.9%.

These are the guys who are some of the best, most reliable, and consistent penalty killers in the game and their role is just as vital to keeping Toronto from getting scored on while giving the captain a chance to score more.

Getting into the offensive zone as much as possible is the key to unlocking Auston Matthews

Switching gears to the offensive side of things now, we can see historically that Matthews' success has come with the man advantage as he has 109 power-play goals (accounting for 25% of his career goals).

But as we all know, Toronto doesn't get a lot of chances on the power-play, so what do we do?

We use Matthews when it matters most.

In games considered 'close' - either 1 goal difference in the first and second period; or a tie game in the third period or overtime - Matthews thrives. In that three-year stretch where he had those aforementioned 169 goals, he was starting in 62.03% of offensive zone starts and had 58 of his 169 goals in that 'close' timeframe.

If he's truly healthy and his knee isn't going to cause problems, then bringing him back to that environment can only lead to good things. Keefe knew that Matthews was clutch and had that killer instinct, and threw him out there whenever he could.

Why would you grind out a slow, plodding style where you're playing guys like Calle Jarnkrok and Steven Lorentz in the last few minutes of the game hoping they can eek out a gritty goal - when you have a guy who has more goals in high-pressure situations than Jarnkrok has goals over the past five seasons?

Auston Matthews was drafted as a pure goal scorer, proved it time and time again, and broke records along the way. Craig Berube tried to shut it down, but John Chayka has done everything in his power to get him dangerous once again.

Also read on Hockey Patrol :
The Maple Leafs have created a serious waiver problem on defence