How life without Mitch Marner looks so far for the Maple Leafs

Oct 22, 2025, 13:00 EDTUpdated: Oct 22, 2025, 12:16 EDT

How life without Mitch Marner looks so far for the Maple Leafs

Credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images

Whether you thought the Toronto Maple Leafs moving on from Mitch Marner was a necessary move or a regrettable one, you can’t deny the impact his departure has on the lineup.

For nine seasons, Marner was one of the best playmakers in the NHL, with his 520 assists sitting fifth in the league in that span. He has also become one of the best defensive forwards in the league, with his speed and hockey sense making him a shorthanded-goal threat on the penalty kill, and it’s earned him votes for the Selke Trophy for the past seven seasons, including a third-place finish in 2022-23.

Replacing Marner’s offensive or defensive impact on its own is a tough task, never mind replacing a player who can do both. It means the Leafs have had to drastically shift their identity and the way they play to make up for his absence.

“Mitch was such a dynamic player, touched the game in so many areas,” said former Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe ahead of Toronto’s game against his new employer, the New Jersey Devils, on Tuesday. “But they look different because they’ve been able to spread [offense] around and change the look of the group, the identity.”

It’s still incredibly early in the season for the Leafs, but the difference in their play without Marner is already noticeable on the ice. But what do the numbers have to say about that difference? Let’s dive in.

The First Line

The biggest question throughout the summer with Marner leaving the team was always, “Who is going to play with Auston Matthews on the first line”? The two players had been each other’s most-common linemates for six seasons, and they played off each other so well, with Marner’s smooth skating and high-class playmaking being the perfect match for Matthews’ lethal shot and ability to score from most places on the ice. While Matthew Knies continues to be on that line as the power forward who gets the puck on the forecheck and lives in front of the net, the Leafs are in need of a new playmaker.

But as previously mentioned, Marner’s departure adds another wrinkle to solving the issue of the RW1 vacancy, which is his defensive impact. Marner and Matthews’ defensive prowess’ also allowed the top line to be deployed as a shutdown line against the other team’s best players. So in a perfect world, the new winger doesn’t just provide Matthews with a new distributor, he also provides the line with good defensive play or at least defensive play good enough to not be overwhelmed in a shutdown role.

Through six games this season, three players have lined up alongside Matthews and Knies: Matias Maccelli, Easton Cowan and Max Domi. William Nylander has also gotten some ice time with the duo, but that’s more of a situational setup when pressing for offense, so it won’t be considered here as I compare the other three to Marner’s previous two seasons with Matthews and Knies.

Linemate	Games Played	5v5 TOI	5v5 Goals For-Against	5v5 Expected Goal Share	5v5 Expected Goals For Per 60 Minutes	5v5 Expected Goals Against Per 60 Minutes
Matias Maccelli	2	21:24	1-0	49.78%	3.17	3.2
Easton Cowan	4	37:06	1-0	64.98%	2.7	1.46
Max Domi	1	10:30	0-1	5.19%	0.46	8.34
24-25 Mitch Marner	63	595:24	36-23	56.53%	3.35	2.58
2023-24 Mitch Marner	58	405:42	24-12	59.01	3.17	2.2

Clearly, it’s far too early to evaluate how the change has impacted raw goal totals, but there’s still some interesting results to pull from their underlying numbers.

From an offensive perspective, Maccelli on the top line is the closest they’ve come to replicating the expected goal generation they had under Marner, but defensively it’s nowhere close to what they would want out of a shutdown line. Alternatively, Matthews and Knies’ time with Cowan has produced defensive results far better than what the duo accomplished with Marner but comes at the expense of their chance generation.

Then there’s how they played with Domi on Tuesday, which… did not go well. Domi has experience playing with Matthews in past seasons and they have clicked in those minutes (65.68% 5v5 xG share in 2023-24, and 76.87% in 2024-25), so hopefully Tuesday’s performance is just one bad game.

“He’s one of the best players in the world. He makes it pretty easy on you,” Domi said ahead of his first game playing with Matthews this season on Tuesday. “Obviously we’re very close off the ice. I’m a big fan of his as a player, and I’m just trying to help him out any way I can. He’s a pure goal scorer and he loves to get to those areas, so my job is to get him the puck.”

The deployment of the top line hasn’t really changed from previous seasons despite Marner’s departure. 27.12% of Matthews’ faceoffs this season have come in the defensive zone, so he’s still being relied on as a reliable defensive presence that can also get the puck up the ice. By extension, 27.83% of Knies’ faceoffs have come in the defensive zone, right around his career rate of 31.13% entering the season. On top of that, they’re still getting the other team’s top players every game, regardless of who they’re playing with.

Game	Most Frequent Line (Designated by Center)
vs. Montreal Canadiens	Nick Suzuki
at Detroit Red Wings	Dylan Larkin
vs. Detroit Red Wings	Dylan Larkin
vs. Nashville Predators	Ryan O’Reilly
vs. New York Rangers	Mika Zibanejad
vs. Seattle Kraken	Matty Beniers
vs. New Jersey Devils	Jack Hughes/Nico Hischier

Ultimately, Cowan may be the best option for the top line. The production hasn’t quite been there, but it’s great news that the defensive ability may already be there (or at least Cowan isn’t holding back Matthews and Knies). Cowan is only 20, so he has plenty of time to figure out how to generate more offense, but with a strong defensive foundation already in place, it’s a great start. It would help if Cowan was actually in the lineup every night, of course.

Power Play

In Marner’s nine seasons with the Leafs, they scored at a 24.2% rate, which was the third best in that span behind the Edmonton Oilers and Tampa Bay Lightning. Toronto also was the best team at generating shot attempts on the power play with 110.84 per 60, and they generated the most expected goals per 60 in that state with 9.29.

If you want to strictly go off the Leafs’ performance after bringing in John Tavares and operating as a unit with the Core Four’ and either Matthew Knies or a defenseman, their power-play rate is still the third best at 24.1%. Under the hood, Toronto had 109.93 shot attempts per 60 and 9.32 expected goals per 60 with this group, both the second-best mark in the league.

Toronto had primarily been operating with a five-forward unit last season, so with Marner out of the picture, Morgan Rielly has returned to quarterback the top unit for the most part. He replaces Marner on the point, while Matthews and Nylander operate along the half-walls, Tavares works as the bumper in the slot, and Knies causes chaos in front of the net.

So far, the power play hasn’t seen too much a dropoff in its process. While its 12.5% success rate is a significant difference, it can largely be chalked up to the small sample size. Meanwhile, their 107.25 shot attempts per 60 and 8.95 expected goals per 60 are close to their usual rates, a sign that the power play should eventually pick up steam again.

Penalty Kill

In the seven seasons Marner was a consistent penalty killer for the Leafs, their unit operated at a success rate of 79.4%, tied with the Nashville Predators for the 13th-best in the league. The Leafs also allowed the ninth-fewest shot attempts against per 60 with 79.74 and the 19th-fewest expected goals per 60 with 6.05. When Marner was on the ice, those numbers increased to 96.21 shot attempts against per 60 and 7.28 expected goals against per 60.

With Marner gone, the Leafs have generally deployed five forwards on the penalty kill: Nicolas Roy, Calle Jarnkrok, Dakota Joshua, Matthews and Knies. The Leafs’ penalty-kill unit has seen a massive overhaul beyond Marner, as Scott Laughton has been injured to start the season and David Kampf was sent down to the Toronto Marlies. So, the newly acquired Roy & Joshua and a healthy Jarnkrok have helped replace them.

So far this season, the Leafs have killed off 79% of their penalties, which is on par with how they performed with Marner. However, they’ve allowed 109.19 shot attempts and 13.67 expected goals against per 60 on the penalty kill, which is a significant increase away from Marner. But, it’s only been seven games, so there’s a large margin of error compared to what the final results may be at the end of the season.

Where Marner’s absence may particularly hurt the Leafs shorthanded is the offense they generate on the penalty kill. His 18 shorthanded points from 2018 to 2025 were the 13th-most in that span, so Toronto could see a drop off there, although Matthews and Knies shouldn’t be slouches in that regard.

In Conclusion

In the end, it’s still too early to draw significant conclusions from how the Leafs have performed thus far. The power play has solid underlying numbers but weak results, while the penalty kill has solid results but weak underlying numbers.

But the top line’s results at 5v5 do show an interesting trend that lines up with my biggest concern regarding the Leafs losing Marner: they can replace his offense, or they can replace his defense, but they will struggle to replace both. So far, Matthews and Knies lines have either generated offense well but struggled defensively, or suppressed chances well but struggled to generate offense.

“It’s obviously not good enough,” said Leafs head coach Craig Berube following Toronto’s 5-2 loss to New Jersey on Tuesday. “I don’t feel like they have any sustained pressure in the offensive zone.”

However, there is some hope with Cowan in the top-line role based on the early underlying numbers. Considering his potential upside, he may be the long-term fit for that role, much like how Knies became the replacement for Zach Hyman.

All advanced stats come courtesy of Evolving Hockey.

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