Same complaints were made about Tavares last season. From Sportsnet article:
And second, in terms of successful (as in, they landed on net) shots taken from the inner slot in the playoffs, John Tavares had twice as many as the next best Leafs player with 20 in just 11 games. That he only had four playoff goals is crazy; he’s the only guy who can really make a claim to have gotten “unlucky” with his post-season output (his secondary assists also dried up, which is partially bad luck).
This was this past season:
Toronto Maple Leafs: Forward John Tavares has the second-most high-danger shots on goal (155) this regular season behind Hyman.
and here's the data on Marner from last playoffs:
But still, everyone is shooting from farther way (measured in average feet from the net per shot).
Average shooting distance
Imagine tacking two, or four feet, on to every shot you take in the regular season and expecting the same results. Let alone nearly 10.
Another way to look at this is by “portion of shots from the slot.” This is just compared to themselves -- are they getting the same quality looks they usually get per shot? The answer, outside of Matthews, is a pretty clear “no.”
Percentage of shots from the slot
Marner’s “portion of shots from the slot” percentage was last on the Leafs in the playoffs by over 10 per cent. Michael Bunting, another important forward for them, saw his percentage drop from 63.5 per cent (second best in regular season) to 57.1 per cent.
It's also tough to make sense of Matthews' dried-up point totals, but what really dropped were his primary assists, which went from 1.16 (per 60) to 0.48.
Hindsight is 20/20, but seeing how far Marner was living from the net in the above stats, and that Calle Jarnkrok was on Matthews' left side, maybe it would’ve been tough to tally many points on passes