Toronto Maple Leafs: Analyzing Komarov’s Playing Situation

The Toronto Maple Leafs Leo Komarov has become of fan favorite for his grinding, irritating style of play; however, does his defensive prowess warrant so much playing time, given that he rarely scores?

Mike Babcock prides himself on rolling out three balanced lines that can score; which is why the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t play Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner together. Both can drive their lines causing fits for their opponents. Komarov plays on one of the three scoring lines alongside Nazem Kadri.

Last season, the 30-year-old put together a 32-point campaign for the Toronto Maple Leafs. His center, Kadri, endured a career high in goals (32) and points (61). This season, however, the offense has dried up.

Komarov has endured a difficult offensive season which directly effects Kadri. The Finnish forward plays on a scoring line and gets a lot of minutes.

A Black Hole on Offense

When it comes to the offensive end, Komarov is a black hole. In 5v5 situations last season, he possessed a shooting percentage of 11%. This season though, Komarov’s SH% has seen a decline as it sits at an abysmal 2%. With a low SH%, it’s no surprise Komarov is accomplishing little on offense. Whlie Komarov is never going to score a ton, he can hardly be blamed for the low shooting percentage – it’s essentially just bad luck.

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Komarov’s offensive contributions wouldn’t become magnified if he were playing on the fourth line; however, playing on a line with Kadri, more is expected offensively along with the defensive roles the line has.

Using Sean Tierney’s chart, it provides a visual of how bad Kadri and Komarov are at generating shots when on a line together. This visual helps explain Kadri’s struggle after a terrific start to his season. A line cannot produce if all they do is chase the puck around.  Sure, Komarov is great defensively, but if he’s not generating shots in conjunction with that, it’s debatable how much it helps.

Before their game against the Vegas Golden Knights, Komarov played 14+ minutes. His time on ice against the Arizona Coyotes was 19:11, nearly 20 minutes. Through 40 games, Komarov has played more 5v5 minutes than Mitch Marner, James van Riemsdyk, and Connor Brown.

For a winger that has provided little to no offense this season, it’s head-scratching to see him see the ice so much. Though, to play devils advocate: the Leafs are a bad defensive team and he is by far their best defensive forward.

Other Viable Options from Within

To get Komarov off any scoring line, Toronto needs to have a replacement in place, which they do. Fellow Finnish winger Kasperi Kapanen has shown he’s more than capable of being a full-time NHLer. Nonetheless, Kapanen has yet to stick permanently in Toronto’s lineup which isn’t his fault. This season when he’s seen action with the big club, Kapanen is typically playing on the fourth line.

In six games this season, Kapanen has played a total of 65 minutes. The majority of his minutes were with Matt Martin and Dominic Moore. For Kapanen, playing with these two enables for him to show his offensive skill.

Furthermore, Toronto wants to emulate the Detroit Red Wings motto of letting prospects overripe in the American Hockey League. It’s not a wrong philosophy, but when under-performing veterans take up spots, then it becomes a concern.

There are spurts where Toronto continues to struggle offensively. Rather than playing an unexplainable amount of minutes, prospects are waiting for the chance to stick. Babcock wants the younger players to take the veterans jobs, but how can they do so when they are on the fourth line. Playing with veterans that don’t compliment their skill.

That said, no replacement is going to make up for the defensive contributions of Leo Komarov.  T

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Conclusion

Komarov is a fan favorite for his hard-nose style of play and not being afraid to get under opponents skin.  He probably plays too many minutes considering he can’t / doesn’t score.  There is absolutely no excuse to have him finish any game as the team’s leader in ice-time (among forwards) but it has happened.

On the other side though, Komarov is one of the NHL’s best defensive forwards and that is an area in which the Leafs are lacking.  He’s too good defensively to play on the fourth line, but again, is still playing too many minutes.  It’s a tough situation: Perhaps the answer is to put Marner or JVR on a line with the Kadri and Komarov in order to give that line a bit more offensive juice.