Matias Maccelli is a potential boost to Maple Leafs’ secondary scoring

The Maple Leafs beat the free agent rush by making a trade on Monday afternoon by bringing in Matias Maccelli (no relation to Tony Micelli) from Utah for a 2027 third round pick (or a 2029 second round pick if the Leafs make the playoffs and Maccelli hits 51 points this year).

Given that Maccelli’s career to date has been played in either Utah or Arizona, not much might be known about the 5’11 Finnish winger, but given that Toronto’s front office includes Shane Doan, and Brad Treliving also has plenty of lingering connections to the Pacific Division and the former Coyotes organization, it seems reasonable that they know this player fairly well and believe that his 2024-25 dip in production isn’t going to continue and his 49 and 57 point seasons in the previous two years represent the player they are getting. At a $3.425M cap hit for one season that gamble seems a lot more worthwhile than taking a gamble on the free agent class.

Here’s a further rundown of the numbers on Maccelli:

It’s also worth appreciating that Maccelli will just be turning 25 as the season starts. The Maple Leafs getting younger while adding talent a huge plus and deepens the top nine forward group potentially, although there is still a Marner sized hole to fill.

It is notable that Maccelli’s icetime also dropped in 2024-25. The previous two seasons saw his ice time mirroring the lower side of average TOI for a second line winger, while in 2024-25, his ice time was more on par with third line utilization. According to PuckIQ, Maccelli’s ice time was fairly balanced competition wise playing nearly equally between elite, middle, and gritty competition (30%, 33%, and 36% respectively.) One of the interesting changes for his line was going from being around 44% offensive zone starts or faceoffs in previous seasons, to now having 59% of starts coming in the offensive zone.

Part of the challenge for Maccelli might have been the lack of consistent linemates in 2024-25.  In his 653 minutes of 5v5 ice time, only Lawson Crouse and Nick Bjugstad played with him for more than 200 minutes. He would have three other linemates he’d exceed 100 minutes with and saw time with pretty much every Utah forward not named Clayton Keller. In the previous two seasons, Crouse and Bjugstad were his most frequent linemates and all three took a significant step backwards production wise in 2024-25.

Maccelli’s PDO speaks to the ugly results on the goals for percentage. His on-ice shooting percentage of 6.33% is a big part of the offence drying up and while he has primarily been a playmaker, his individual shooting percentage also dropped from 11.4% to 9.3% contributing to the struggles.