With Auston Matthews and William Nylander out of the lineup, the Toronto Maple Leafs are looking very ordinary.
To be fair, they probably should have scored four or give goals against the Dallas Stars last night, but overall, outside of their high-flying start (which was propped up by ridiculous power-play success and a crazy shooting percentage) they’ve looked very ordinary.
Now, what team would thrive while missing arguably their two best players? No team would, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing. We spent the entire summer getting pumped up for an offense the likes of which the salary cap NHL has never seen, and we’re not even close to seeing that.