TORONTO — It looked like a demotion when Tyler Bozak returned from injury at the end of October and found himself playing on the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ second power-play unit rather than first.
Little did we know, he was about to flip the labels.
Beyond the superb play of goaltender James Reimer, the team’s November turnaround has been fuelled by supercharged specialty teams which seem to have magically improved the moment the calendar turned.
In reality, the surge coincided with the pieces falling into place on a secondary power-play unit built around Bozak, P-A Parenteau and a rejuvenated Peter Holland, who has six points in five games since ending a string of healthy scratches.
Mike Babcock repeatedly juggled his personnel throughout an opening month where the Leafs had the NHL’s worst power-play proficiency at 7.41 per cent and finished with a 1-7-2 record. In the nine games since, they’ve boosted their success rate to 20.7 per cent overall while going 5-2-2.
“I think we all found a spot to play,” Parenteau said after Tuesday’s 5-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche.
“We know where each other are,” added Holland. “That’s the biggest thing. You start to get into a rhythm and some chemistry and you just find each other.”
Against a Colorado team that had previously shown some proficiency in killing penalties, they were dynamite.
The Leafs whipped the puck around at will and allowed just over two minutes total to elapse while scoring on their first four power play tries — getting goals 18 seconds, 19 seconds, 90 seconds and nine seconds after an Avalanche player was sent to the box.
“It was awesome,” said Bozak. “We were moving the puck really well.”
Two of the goals came from Parenteau while Bozak added another. The fourth was scored by James van Riemsdyk, who is on the top power-play unit, while Leo Komarov added a short-handed marker.
When you couple that with the fact Toronto killed off all four penalties it took, the game was a special teams clinic — continuing an encouraging trend for a group of players now finding some confidence.
The major improvements in power-play and penalty kill situations have actually allowed the Leafs to paper over some shortcomings at even strength. They’ve been outshot in seven of the last nine games — including 35-30 by the Avalanche — but have still managed to move up the standings.
The power-play in particular has provided a boost with 10 goals in November and Bozak registered a point on six of those. Heck, Parenteau scored a team-leading four of them.
That duo has formed a rotating unit that on Tuesday included Shawn Matthias, Holland and Dion Phaneuf.
“We kind of all bring a different element out there,” said Bozak. “Obviously, (Matthias) does a great job getting down low and working the corners. Me and P-A just try to make some plays and get the puck to the net.”
“We’ve got a lot of confidence where we are on the ice, everyone’s good at what they do,” added Parenteau. “Like Bozie and I had a great night in front of the net, made some good plays, same with Holland on the goal line.
“So it’s guys that are comfortable in their spot — it makes a big difference.”
They’ve even managed to slightly outperform the presumed top unit of Nazem Kadri, Komarov, van Riemsdyk, Joffrey Lupul and Jake Gardiner.
You can call that a problem Babcock never expected to have a few weeks ago. And, of course, it really isn’t a problem at all.
To make things easier, the rest of us should simply start referring to Bozak’s unit as the Leafs’ top power-play unit.
“You won’t get me to say that,” said Parenteau. “We’re 1A and 1B. We’ve got two good units that can score goals.”
As a result a few wins have started to follow.