5 strikers set to ignite the CPL playoffs

The Canadian Premier League playoffs are set to begin this week, as the Halifax Wanderers host York United in the Knockout Match on Wednesday, kicking off a two-and-a-half week sprint towards the North Star Cup.

For all five teams that qualified, each side will be optimistic about their chances of winning, even if some teams' chances are much better than others, depending on where they finished in the table.

One big reason for optimism? Each side is armed with the sort of difference-makers that can win matches time of the year - strikers. As most will tell you, while the playoffs are typically defined by stingy defensive games, a good striker can absolutely make the difference when a match is hanging in the balance - just ask last year’s North Star Cup winners, Cavalry FC.

While many factors contributed to Cavalry’s first-ever North Star Cup win, the play of striker Tobias Warschewski was a big one - he scored the lone goal in a 1-0 win vs. Forge in the Championship Semifinal, before scoring in a 2-1 win over that same Forge side in the CPL Final, capping off a Golden Boot winning campaign by winning the first-ever CPL Final MVP for his efforts on a day where his side won a crucial trophy in front of their fans.

Now, Warschewski is looking to repeat those sort of heroics this time around, and he’s one of five strikers who will feel capable of doing so, as the five playoff-bound teams are led by a crop of #9s that might be among the best in league history. Yet, their presence helps explain a league-wide phenomenon this year, as teams scored at a record pace in 2025, and will hope to continue doing so in the playoffs.

With that in mind, here’s a look at those five strikers who will be looking to fire their respective teams to glory.

Julian Altobelli - York United (10 goals, 26 appearances)

The lone striker on this list with no previous CPL experience, the York United man certainly surpassed all expectations in his debut campaign, scoring double digits in goals.

In particular, he started the year on a hot streak, scoring two goals in his debut, before racking up seven goals in his first nine games. However, he then finished on a cold run, scoring just once after August.

Because of that, York will be hoping he can regain his form in the playoffs, as he was tough to stop when he was on his game.

When looking at the goals he scored, however, he was more of a classic poacher, scoring eight of his 10 goals with his feet, all of those coming with his preferred right foot. Otherwise, he scored two headers, which is quite good - only one other striker on this list has scored more than one header.

He also scored two penalties, but given that York won just two of those throughout the season, it wasn’t a reliable source of goals for him - although that he converted both of those suggests he’ll be ready to take any that might come his way this postseason.

Where he’ll want to step up these playoffs is with the xG he generates - among the five strikers on this list, he had the fourth-most xG with 9.59 - including 8.01 non-penalty xG.

It’s encouraging to see that his non-penalty goal total of eight almost exactly matches that non-penalty xG, suggesting that his finishing luck evened out over the course of the season - showing that his priority will just be to get the sort of high-quality looks that he showed that he was able to finish, especially earlier in the year.

To that last point, it’s worth noting that he had the best big chance conversion rate among the five strikers on this list at 50%, converting eight of the 16 big chances he had.

Plus, if anything, luck evaded him at times - he hit the woodwork three times this season, tied for second in the CPL - so perhaps that’ll encourage him to keep shooting, something he had no problem with considering he was third in the league in shots with 76, getting 31 of them on target.

Now, the big goal for him will be to get back in form in time for the playoffs. While his late-season slump, of which injuries also played a role, suggests that teams figured out how to deny him the high-quality chances he’s finished this year (which is why his xG per shot is just 0.13), his big goal in the postseason will be to find those sorts of looks again, as he tended to finish them - showing why he'll want to improve on the fact that just 13 % of his touches were inside the box in the regular season.

Tiago Coimbra - Halifax Wanderers (12 goals, 22 appearances)

It was a breakout season for Coimbra, who, after scoring seven goals combined in his first two CPL campaigns, scored an impressive 12 goals in just 22 appearances.

For Coimbra, when he was on the pitch, he tended to score in 2025 - the big worry, as it has been in past years, has been how much he actually saw the field due to injuries.

To his credit, he was able to play a far bigger role this year than in past seasons, but he still missed important stretches of play this year, including over the past two months.

He’s back and healthy, playing 83 minutes in the Wanderers' season finale, so that’s encouraging, as his side will hope he can stay on the field this postseason.

A big reason for his offensive success this year? An ability to generate chances, as despite playing just 1229 minutes, he was fourth in the CPL in non-penalty xG with 9.44, and third in the CPL in big chances with 23.

Plus, he was pretty clinical with those opportunities, as he scored 11 of those 23 big chances (47.8%), which is not bad at all. Plus, he showed decent variety with his finishing, scoring eight goals on his right (including all three of his penalties), while also scoring three with his left foot, and one other with his head.

Importantly, he scores a lot of goals with his first touch, especially on crosses, which shows that his movement off the ball has been a big strength of his game - it's a big reason why he generates an impressive 0.21 xG per shot, as 22% of his touches are in the box, including 16% in and around the six-yard box and penalty spot.

Therefore, look for the Wanderers to find him with the right service into the box, especially on those crosses. When Coimbra scored this year, the Wanderers tended to do well - they won six games, drew two and lost one in those games - so they’ll hope he gets hot in the playoffs.

Tobias Warschewski - Cavalry FC (8 goals, 27 appearances)

After a scorching 2024 campaign, one where he scored 14 regular-season goals and two playoff markers, Warschewski came down to earth a bit this season, scoring just eight goals, with two of them coming from the penalty spot.

The big reason for that, however, was a slump that lasted from the end of May until the middle of August - an 11-game run where he failed to find the net. That means that after scoring five goals in his first seven games, he scored just three times in his last 20 games, a figure he’d love to change in the playoffs.

Given what he accomplished last year, though, that won’t worry him - especially considering that two of the three goals he scored at the end of this season came in a 4-1 win vs. eventual CPL Shield winners Forge, a game in which Cavalry snapped Forge’s bid at an undefeated season.

What that shows, though, is that Warschewski might be primed to step up again now that the games are getting bigger, much like he did in the 2024 playoffs.

If he’s to do that, however, he’ll need to generate more chances - he had just 5.87 non-penalty xG, meaning that his six non-penalty goals were actually pretty good value for what he created. A big reason for that, however, is a lack of shot quality - he was actually second in the league in shots with 81, but just 49 of them were inside the box, showing why he generated just 0.10 xG per shot.

To that point, he generated just 10 big chances and converted only three of them, as he didn’t get enough high-quality looks at goal for a player of his calibre.

Yet, that partly explains why Cavalry only finished third, as they didn’t get Warschewski the ball enough in dangerous positions - although it’s worth noting that he had only 6.99 non-penalty xG and 13 big chances in 2024, so it’s not as if those numbers were significantly better, either.

To be fair, one big part of Warschewski’s game is that he drops deep to get involved in his team’s link-up play, which is why his five assists lead this group of strikers, but ideally, Cavalry would want him closer to the box - just 11% of his touches came inside that area of the pitch.

The good news? They’re better set up to do that now. For a large chunk of the season, they missed a true left-sided threat, something they rectified with the signing of Goteh Ntignee. With the threat of Ntignee on the left and Ali Musse on the right, that should open up space for Warschewski to find the space he needs to shine in the middle.

For example, it’s worth noting that he actually led the league in dribbles completed, so he doesn’t need much space to create opportunities for his right foot, with which he scored all eight goals, so look for him to link up effectively with his wingers to increase his shot quality.

Samuel Salter - Atlético Ottawa (19 goals, 28 appearances)

It was a season to remember for Salter, who didn’t just beat the CPL’s single-season goal record of 14, but he smashed it, too, scoring 19 to win the league’s Golden Boot.

For a player whose benchmark was scoring 11 back in 2022, it was a remarkable campaign from Salter, who hit new heights while leading the line for an exciting Atlético Ottawa side.

As a result, it’s unsurprising to see that when looking at why he was able to score as much as he did, his numbers pop out.

Firstly, it must be acknowledged that of his 19 goals, none of them came from the penalty spot, making it remarkable that he almost hit 20 goals.

A big reason for his success was his ability to get to dangerous areas, as he had a whopping 18.40 non-penalty xG, which was by far and away the most in the league. Plus, he did a good job of not being wasteful with that xG, as his xG on target was 20.11, meaning that he turned a lot of those good opportunities into great ones.

He could’ve been even more clinical than he was - he converted 19 of 41 big chances - but he got to the right areas of the box and was rewarded for it, scoring 14 times with his left and three times with his right to go along with two headers.

His big calling card was his shot volume - he led the league with 83 shots, including a league-high 45 that hit the target - but where he distinguished himself from his peers was by the quality of shots that he took (he had a whopping 0.22 xG per shot), which is why all 19 goals he scored came from inside the box, coming from a league-high 73 shots inside the box (he was also third in the league with 130 touches inside the box).

No doubt, he benefited from high-quality service from his teammates, but he was just as good at making the most of that service thanks to his runs off the ball, which was shown by the fact that a lot of his goals were first-timed finishes in good areas of the box - usually coming on moves that he started deeper on the field with his link-up play (as shown in his expansive touch map).

For context, too, his 83 shots, 45 shots on target, 41 big chances, 73 shots inside the box and 18.40 xG were all single-season records, giving an idea of how dominant a campaign this was from him.

Because of that, look for Ottawa to keep feeding him chances in the playoffs. Remarkably, he’s never gone more than two games without scoring in league play this year, something that only happened three times - which is of note given that he’s gone into the playoffs goalless in his last two games.

Brian Wright - Forge FC (12 goals, 26 appearances)

In the end, while Wright’s first season at Forge ended up being a lot more up and down than hoped, he was clutch when his team needed him to be, scoring two goals in their final game to help them clinch the CPL Shield.

As a result, he finished with a respectable 12 goals, which is a career-high for him after scoring nine last year for York United.

Therefore, while it might be hard for the 2024 Player’s Player of the Year to reclaim that hardware after some of the individual seasons that have occurred around the league, his haul is quite impressive, especially when considering his role on a trophy-winning team.

Yet, when looking at his numbers, you can see the up and down nature quickly manifest itself, as he’s the one forward on this list who underperformed his xG pretty significantly this year - his 12 goals (nine non-penalty goals) have come from 15.19 xG (12.82 non-penalty xG).

This isn’t anything new for Wright - he’s missed a league-high 56 big chances in his career, 13 more than the next name - but it’s something worth noting ahead of the playoffs, especially after a season where he converted 11 of 29 big chances.

Plus, on a Forge team that has a lot of options in the attack, Wright might only get a few chances per game - he’s taken just 50 shots this year, which is last among strikers on this list - making it quite remarkable that he had that many big chances considering the volume (although it’s worth noting that 49 out of 50 his shots have been inside the box, and that he’s sixth in the CPL in touches in the box with 103, with 27% of his touches coming in that area).

That's shown by the fact that he's generated an impressive 0.31 xG per shot - while he doesn't shoot often, he tends to shoot from good areas.

That’s the challenge of being a striker on Forge, however, which can be a thankless job - you have to be able to do a lot of work off the ball, and be strong in your hold-up play, while knowing that when a big chance comes to you, you’ll be expected to finish it.

Therefore, for Forge, they’ll be encouraged that he finished the year on a strong note, as it’ll perhaps give him some good momentum heading into the playoffs - it’s worth noting that in the past, he’s been a striker who likes to take a few touches before scoring, something he’s had to adjust this year.

Having scored 11 of his goals with his right foot, he seems to have figured out where he likes chances and how he’ll want to finish them, so he’ll just want to be clinical when the moment comes.