Toronto Maple Leafs: A Review Of The Defensive Group

The Toronto Maple Leafs had five defenders suit up in a significant amount of games (39+) by the time the year ended. Let’s take a quick look at how the group performed.

Not included in this group are Toronto Maple Leafs departures Dion Phaneuf and Roman Polak. The five that did suit up had varying results, and levels of trust, for the buds this season.

For the purpose of this post I’m going to zero in on 5v5 play with a score situation of within one goal as a better gauge for trust by the coaching staff.

First, let’s look at what the group of five players did within a goal at 5v5 in relative statistics of corsi-for percentage, scoring chances for percentage and offensive zone start percentage.

Numbers from war-on-ice.com

Now let’s look at the TOI per game, within a goal at 5v5, for each of the five players from the Toronto Maple Leafs

Frank Corrado was the most sheltered of the group, as previously noted several days ago, and he had positive results in his deployment. By no means was he handed any sort of solid trust through his 39 games, but his deployment is likely to change next year after proving his value in situational appearances.

Martin Marincin was also carefully sent out on the ice when the active score was within a goal and he too came away with positive numbers. Marincin was much better than his critics give him credit for. He played well for the Toronto Maple Leafs this year.

Matt Hunwick was the Toronto Maple Leafs biggest disaster at 5v5 within a goal. He came in dead last for everything. His play significantly differed from the expectations at the time of his signing and I have a hard time believing he’ll be given the same tough zone starts next season based on this years performance.

Morgan Rielly‘s numbers were lower than many would have liked, but there’s a few things to consider when processing his negative numbers. First of all he played the majority of his 5v5 time (all score situations) with Matt Hunwick, who was awful.

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With Hunwick – for 737 minutes of 5v5 – Rielly sported a 47.8 CF%. Without Hunwick – with 707 minutes of 5v5 – Rielly totalled 51.8 CF%. Hunwick without Rielly fell to 45.8%. It’s safe to say that Rielly carried Hunwick as best as he could, but even that wasn’t enough to save this Toronto Maple Leafs pairing.

I would have liked to have seen more of Rielly-Gardiner this year (60.4% CF in 68 5v5 minutes). I know that makes most people cringe and wonder who will play defence but, let’s be honest here, that pairing would have the puck so much that the defensive zone play would be minimal. That’s the overall goal, isn’t it?

Rielly also enjoyed a much, much tougher zone start percentage this year. He went from 0.90 to -5.47 from 2014-2015 to 2015-2016. He was handed much more responsibility than he had a year ago. That’s not an easy transition as a 21 year old (Rielly turned 22 on March 9th).

On to Gardiner.

Jake Gardiner was the Toronto Maple Leafs best defender this year. Was he more sheltered than Rielly? Absolutely, but that was by design. It was almost a sick trust exercise by Babcock with Rielly this year. Gardiner did what Gardiner does – generate chances all season long.

His numbers were tops in this defensive group and it isn’t really close. When he’s on the ice the Toronto Maple Leafs spend less time chasing their own tail in the defensive zone. It might look like Gardiner is floating around without a clue of what’s happening, but there’s a method to his madness and he isn’t as useless as people want to believe.

He was given the third lowest offensive zone starts by Babcock within a goal. There is trust with Gardiner on a certain level. He’s likely going to receive some tougher shift starts next year so we’ll get an even better gauge at where he’s at, but I think he’ll surprise people.

Next: Four Goalies To Target This Year

From what I saw all year, and looking at these numbers, is that Morgan Rielly was being tested at age 21 to see what he could handle. He passed the test and, given a better partner than Matt Hunwick, he’ll be much, much better next season. Morgan Rielly and Jake Gardiner are solidified as part of this core, the rest have more to prove as responsibilities increase.