Toronto Maple Leafs:Travis Dermott’s Impressive Rookie Stats
By James Tanner
The Toronto Maple Leafs have recently promoted Travis Dermott to the NHL.
Travis Dermott played his first NHL game for the Toronto Maple Leafs on January 6th, and picked up an assist. At first, he was going to be a rotating member of a group that included Connor Carricck and Andreas Borgman, but soon proved to be so effective that that idea was almost immediately abandoned.
Dermott has been a regular ever since, and scored his first career NHL goal January 31st against the Islanders. So far, that’s his only one, but the consensus seems to be that he has transformed the Leafs defense from a position of weakness to one of strength, and so I thought it would be worthwhile to look into his stats and see how he has performed.
Travis Dermott
Dermott is a left shooting defenseman born in 1996. He is 21 years old and is from New Market Ontario, which basically makes him a homegrown, hometown kid playing for the Leafs – something that the Leafs haven’t had near enough of over the years (they currently also have Brown and Kadri who are also from close-enough to Toronto to count in this category).
Dermott was drafted in the second round, 34th overall. Ok, but how’s he playing?
So far, in 25 games, Dermott has nine points. That might not seem like a lot, but in the NHL, 40 points for a defenseman is considered a very strong season, and Dermott, as a rookie, is on 30 point pace. To further contextualize this number, remember that he is on the third pairing and is the third best offensive option on the team, after Gardiner and Rielly.
Dermott’s 51.75% CF possession rating is tops on the Toronto Maple Leafs, meaning he has been very effective in the way Babcock has used him. Of course, Gardiner and Rielly’s lines get far and away the hardest minutes, so we must take this with a grain of salt. There is, however, the fact that Dermott’s most common partner is Roman Polak which does work to counter balance the relatively easy minutes Dermott is playing (due to Polak being anywhere from ineffective to actively bad, depending on the game).
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Dermott is getting the fifth most minutes on the Leafs, per game at even-strength. He is getting virtually no special teams ice time. He is just under Morgan Rielly ‘s team leading shots/60 number, and yet, only Connor Carrick and Martin Marincin have allowed less shots against / 60 than Dermott.
Travis Dermott, Continued!
To sum up: He’s providing offense, he’s providing defense, the possession game is good and while he’s doing it from the third pairing, he’s also doing it while anchored to Roman Polak. When Dermott gets away from Polak, even though that means he is now facing tougher competition, his possession rating goes up 10%.
To conclude, Travis Dermott is living up to the hype. He really has transformed the Leafs defense. Instead of Borgman/Polak being a black hole (Borgman is not good enough to counteract Polak, and Dermott is) the third pairing is now acceptable. Of course, if you replaced Polak with Justin Holl, Connor Carrick, Andreas Borgman, Martin Marincin, Timothy Liljegren, Calle Rosen or anyone else you can think of, that would improve the bottom pairing as well.
Next: Calle Rosen's Terrible Luck
Dermott is a rookie exhibiting signs of elite offense, very good defense, and a solid all-round game. A 30 point pace with zero power-play time is quite the gaudy statistic, actually. I don’t want to say it’s likely, but it’s certainly possible at this point that Travis Dermott could develop into an elite, top-pairing player.