2025 T25U25: Matias Maccelli is #3

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Finnish forward Matias Maccelli joined the Leafs over the summer in a trade for a conditional third round pick. He’s going to be 25 in October, but will hopefully make an impact for a Leafs team without assets looking for contributions up front.

Matias Maccelli
Vitals

Age as of July 1
24.71

Position
LW/RW

Height
5’11”

Weight (lbs)
185

Shoots
L

Draft Year
2019

Draft Number
98

Let’s go through the timeline of how Maccelli got here (big thanks to Hockey Viz for a lot of this). It all started in Turku, Finland, the year was 2000 and y2k was a big flop and Madonna’s Music was a big hit. Fast forward 19 years and Maccelli was drafted in the fourth round by the Arizona Coyotes out of the USHL where he had spent the season after years in the U20 Liiga.

After a couple years in the Liiga and a season with the AHL Roadrunners, Maccelli was a full-time NHLer in 2022, scoring almost 50 points in his rookie season – mostly assists. A second season with Arizona was more of the same, breaking 50 points and 40 assists. Last season, however, Maccelli’s point totals cratered hard on the Coyotes who were now in Utah. He only managed 18 points and he was healthy scratched down the stretch. One thing led to another and he’s now on his second NHL team.

Two seasons ago, Maccelli spent most of the season playing with Lawson Crouse and Nick Bjugstad on Arizona’s second line. Neither are line-carrying stars, but the trio had a good season with both Crouse and Bjugstad scoring 20 goals each and Maccelli getting close. They didn’t win their minutes in shots, but they were very respectable for a Coyotes line that was relied upon to play real minutes.

Unfortunately last season things went off the rails. After starting the season bounced around the roster, Maccelli was reunited with Crouse and Bjugstad, but the trio saw their results crater on arguably better shot rates. 4 goals on 7.42 expected, good for a 4.6% shooting percentage. Nothing was going in for them, turning a 57% xGF% into 41% goals. Just brutal, and the line was broken up after 17 games.

Things never turned around for Maccelli in Utah after that stretch. In fact, it got worse. Maccelli was then put on a line with Barrett Hayton and Josh Doan. In his 10-ish game stretch with them, his line absolutely crushed their opponent on the ice with 65-70% shots and chance advantages… but were outscored with again only 43% goals. Again, under 5% shooting and even worse goaltending.

After those two episodes, Maccelli was pretty much given up on for the rest of the season by his coach. He was healthy scratched and then put on the fourth line to finish the season.

Like Nick Robertson, Maccelli’s results aren’t directly in his control. As a passer and playmaker, he could only get so much success when his teammates were converting at the appalling rates they were. To say those rates out loud, with Maccelli on the ice at 5v5, the Utah HC scored 20 goals on 29 expected, allowing 26 goals on 25 expected. Between 23/24 and 24/25, Maccelli went from scoring 12 goals to 8 at 5v5, but more importantly dropping from 15 primary assists to a shocking 4.

THEN STOP PUTTING HIM ON THE FUCKING FOURTH LINE WITH GUYS WHO CAN’T FUCKING FINISH!!!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!

— Kesler (@kesolilly.bsky.social) 2025-03-07T21:09:16.036Z

Those quotes above are from the GM, who traded Maccelli a few months later. I’m not sure what one can do given that sort of feedback.

The Player

Researching what we can know about Maccelli, I get a very strong Max Domi profile from him. It’s surprisingly uncanny. Both are strongly skewed passing wingers with good vision, very bad on the power play, and seemingly not much else to write home about. Maccelli doesn’t play very physically, unlike Domi, but that keeps him out of the penalty box and they both seemingly do about as well winning board battles from the clips I’ve been able to see. Maccelli very much likes to be the high/perimeter player who finds players closer to the net for chances.

Pretty much anytime you can get an unquestionably nhl-calibre player for a mid-round draft pick (like the Leafs just did trading for Matias Maccelli) you should.

— Micah McCurdy (@hockeyviz.com) 2025-06-30T17:21:13.456Z

His shot distribution is nearly identical to most Domi seasons. Maccelli has very good hands on him and can occasionally score when he has time and space in front of the net (he scored a plurality of goals against the Sharks last year), but ends up shooting from all over the ice. Below was Domi’s first year on the Leafs for reference.

Earlier in the summer, I expected Maccelli to be a complimentary, role-playing winger in the top six. The sidekick that fills in the gaps, ala Michael Bunting. But after this exercise, I think it’s very likely we see Maccelli playmaking for hard-nosed forwards like Matthews, Knies, Tavares, McMann, Joshua. He’s going to be directly competing with Max Domi for linemates with as much finishing talent as they can muster. Last season, Nick Robertson machine-gunned all those shots from Domi, while Mitch Marner played the true do-it-all role as playmaker, shooter, transitioner, puck winner, and defender. One of Maccelli and Domi will be asked to “fill” one role (maybe two if we’re lucky) in his place. What happens to the other is anybody’s guess, but part of me expects to see them on the ice for 10 minutes a night with #89 and a babysitter.

Here’s some stuff I read and watched. Once again, a big thanks to Micah for giving us Hockey Viz.

Solid buy-low bet from the Leafs on Matias Maccelli pic.twitter.com/SAtlN1UoO7

— dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn) June 30, 2025

Note the year on this one.

Matias Maccelli is a recent graduate of the Alex Tanguay “all passing all the time” school of offense. pic.twitter.com/SacXOr6T4c

— Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) July 16, 2023

The Votes

Being an NHL regular in a role above the fourth line, Maccelli spent his first and only T25 year locked into third place. Only Brigstew, Zone Entry, and Shinson93 put more than (the obvious) two players ahead of him. No one dared break up the top two.

Voter
Vote

Cathy
3

Brigstew
4

Species
3

Hardev
3

shinson93
5

Cameron
3

Zone Entry
4

Svalbard38
3

dhammm
3

adam
3

Weighted Average
3.4

Highest Vote
3

Lowest Vote
5

I am pretty certain Maccelli is between Robertson and Knies. He’s closer to Robertson, but not by much. He’s a genuine middle-six winger and has plus playmaking skill with the rest of his game being more-or-less inconsequential. Again, don’t put him on the power play. Don’t put Domi there either. Or Robertson. A unit centered around Steven Lorentz and Simon Benoit is a better option to be quite honest with you.

The OpinionsBrigstew: He’s a legitimate every day NHL forward. He has 130 points in 224 games. He may not be a star or a top impact guy, but for his type as a skilled playmaking winger who is a bit undersized, I like him more than some of Toronto’s other alternatives (cough Domi cough). We’ll see if his previous season is more the norm for him than last year, but even then his impacts were still pretty good. Shinson93: Another guy that has set his floor as an NHL player, but has questions about how much the team he played for fits into his narrative. A slightly undersized guy with playmaking ability, but will need to buy in on the defensive side. If he finds chemistry with someone, it could go very well. If not, he could have a repeat of last year. It will be good to have another Finn to root for, but I don’t want to be disappointed again. Cathy: I confess I don’t have a good guess about what Maccelli will accomplish on the Leafs. He’s got the one bad/one good season history that makes it hard to judge when you consider the context of each year’s usage. But he’s going to be a regular NHLer, and the only other player on this list that’s true of as of now is Matt Knies.dhammm: An interesting buy-low player; his 2024-25 season was horrible, beyond any depths Nick Robertson has sunk to, but his two seasons before last are higher than any heights Robertson has hit in his career to date. I rank them about the same, with Maccelli getting the edge because the proactive acquisition by this front office means they intend to play him and make him work, whereas if any other NHL team felt that way about Nick Robertson such that they’d spend something to get him, he’d probably be gone by now. Svalbard38: I’m not suggesting that Maccelli should just be handed a top 6 spot, but I think he should get the first crack at one unless he has a terrible preseason. He has great passing ability, and if he gets a chance to play with some good shooters (Tavares and Nylander for example), I think he’s fully capable of unlocking the offensive potential he showed in his Arizona years.

So, where do you see Maccelli ending up in the Leafs lineup?

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