Dakota Joshua’s right eye was still glazed with black and blue, some spillover, perhaps, from the dustup he had with Arber Xhekaj at the end of the Maple Leafs’ loss in Montreal last weekend.
It’s evident that Joshua is feeling bruised these days by his start with the Leafs.
Joshua acknowledged that his sluggish first quarter had something to do with the transition he was making to a new team. “But now we’re getting to a point where we’re kinda past (that),” he said. “There’s no time to be the new guy anymore.”
Another new guy, Matias Maccelli, hasn’t found his way yet either.
The Leafs surrendered a pair of mid-round draft picks last summer — a 2028 fourth-rounder to Vancouver for Joshua and a conditional third-rounder in 2027 for Maccelli — and nearly $7 million in cap space in the hopes that one or both would bounce back this season.
It hasn’t happened. Not yet. Quite the opposite, really.
Joshua and Maccelli lined up with Jacob Quillan at practice on a prospective fourth line ahead of Wednesday’s game in Columbus. It’s not inconceivable that one or both could be scratched against the Blue Jackets if any of the injured forwards are available to play.
Dakota Joshua
Joshua looked and sounded more distressed of the two.
When asked how he felt about the official start to his Leafs career, the one-time Leaf draft pick responded with, “I mean,” and then paused for nearly 10 seconds and gazed off into the distance.
Then he finally said, “I’m feeling like there’s a lot more season that needs to be played out. It’s obviously been a struggle to start, and the only good thing about it is it’s only up from here. And that hopefully we’ve seen the worst, and personally and team-wise, that we’re in a spot that this doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
“There’s still more to be written.”
Joshua has only two goals and three assists in 22 games. He hasn’t found the back of the net at all in the last 13 games.
Hence, his current focus is on “making more plays and being more of a driving force out there.”
There was reason to think that Joshua could give the Leafs a little offensive punch from the middle of the lineup. Two seasons ago, he scored 18 goals for the Canucks, and added 14 assists while logging more than 14 minutes a night.
He shot a sizzling 21 percent.
The touch hasn’t been there yet with the Leafs. Joshua scored in back-to-back games in October and not again since.
He is struggling to even get pucks on net right now, mustering just six shots on goal, total, in his last 11 games.
“I think it’s a mentality,” Joshua said of making more plays. “It’s confidence and it comes from within, obviously. For myself, I’ve done it before, so it’s just about getting back to it and then building off that and putting games together. It can’t just be one-and-dones. I feel like that’s what it’s been, just inconsistent.”
Dakota Joshua is still trying to find his way with the Leafs. (Nick Turchiaro / Imagn Images)
Joshua hasn’t found a comfy or lasting connection with any one linemate or any line, not like he did with the pesky duo of Teddy Blueger and Conor Garland in Vancouver.
What the Leafs could use more of, at minimum, is that Joshua indeed becomes more of a “driving force” and more of a pain in the butt to play against. More disruptive on the forecheck, down low in the offensive zone and at the net. More crashing and banging on the regular from the 6-foot-3, 218-pound forward.
He was supposed to be a great fit for Craig Berube-style hockey because of his size and force.
At times, Joshua has looked a step slow, like he’s not quick enough to get where he needs to go in time. He ranks below the NHL’s 50th percentile in top speed and bursts of more than 32 kph this season.
What’s tricky about Joshua’s struggles in the bigger picture is his contract, which has two more seasons after this one at $3.25 million on the cap annually.
The Leafs were betting that he could help them this season and beyond, a prospect that looks far from certain at the moment for a player who turns 30 in May.
A glimmer of hope might be found in the underlying numbers. The Leafs are right around 50 percent in the expected goals department with Joshua on the ice, not bad on a team that’s struggled to carry the play. They’re not giving up much in Joshua’s minutes, though they aren’t generating that much either.
“I feel like there’s a lot of second-guessing going on for myself,” Joshua said. “You’re not gonna get your best playing that way.”
Matias Maccelli
Maccelli was in better spirits than Joshua.
He finished the day’s work at practice with a bout of speed testing.
A Leafs staff member attached a harness with an extendable cord to Maccelli’s chest and he took off from a standstill.
“Faster than ever!” he grinned afterward of his progress.
Maccelli sits between William Nylander and John Tavares in the team’s practice facility dressing room and happily chatted with both when he returned to his stall. It’s evident that he’s more comfortable with his new team these days.
He arrived in Toronto not knowing a single teammate.
“I think better now than the start,” Maccelli said of his transition to the Leafs, chuckling in the direction of Nylander, seated to his right.
Maccelli says he’s feeling more comfortable and confident in Berube’s system as well as in what his head coach wants from him on a nightly basis.
“It’s just trying to play my own game,” he said, “but at the same time trying to play smart and not have too many turnovers.”
Matias Maccelli has nine points in 21 games for the Leafs. (Kamil Krzaczynski / Imagn Images)
It’s a tricky balance for a player such as Maccelli to strike, especially for a team that’s been struggling defensively.
“You want to make a play, and that’s what’s expected of you,” he said. “But then at the same time, you don’t want to turn it over on the blue line.”
Coaches, Berube included, hate that sort of thing. Turnovers lead to odd-man rushes, which lead to goals against. Which makes it hard, Maccelli said. “They want you to make plays,” he said of coaches, “but they don’t want you to turn the puck over.”
He laughed.
“Definitely not easy. But it’s something I’ve been working on my whole career pretty much, so I’m pretty used to it at this point,” he said.
Maccelli hasn’t won Berube over so far.
The Leafs coach scratched him in early November and has increasingly excluded him from top-six consideration, cutting his minutes down in the process, even amid injuries to top-six forwards Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies.
Maccelli is playing around 12 minutes most nights of late.
“He wants me to check hard, play hard, a hard game, and win my battles on the walls and in the corners,” Maccelli said of his coach’s directive. “And keep making plays. But it’s a fine line, making plays and playing smart and hard.”
Playing a harder game will win him points with Berube. Yet, Maccelli needs to make more plays and produce more actual points, too.
He’s collected only a single point in his last seven games, and that was a garbage-time assist in that blowout loss to the Habs. He ranks ninth on the Leafs with nine points, putting him on pace for only 35 points.
Unlike Joshua, Maccelli’s contract expires at the end of the season, at which point he’ll become a restricted free agent.
There are the teeniest tiny fragments of hope here, too. Maccelli is generating around two points per 60 minutes at five-on-five, the seventh-best rate among Leaf forwards who have logged at least 100 minutes — topping Bobby McMann (1.5), Roy (1.1), Joshua (1.0) and Max Domi (0.74) — and inside the top-100 forwards league-wide who have topped 200 minutes.
This suggests that Maccelli might just produce more if granted more opportunity.
And while it never felt exactly dominant, the Leafs did control the small sample of minutes that Maccelli logged alongside Nylander and Tavares, his seatmates in the dressing room. The Leafs outscored teams 5-2 in their 44 minutes and won over 60 percent of the expected goals.
Of the three, Maccelli was obviously least responsible for that success and largely looked overexposed in top-six duty. He has only one primary assist all season and still isn’t shooting the puck with any regularity.
That he’s fallen to the bottom of the lineup, and perhaps soon out of it, amid injuries, obviously isn’t a good sign.
As Joshua said, there’s still more to be written. The Leafs have to hope for a happier ending, for one or both, this season.
— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, NHL EDGE, Puck Pedia and Evolving Hockey
