Toronto Maple Leafs: Centre Depth Is Best in NHL with Tavares
The Toronto Maple Leafs have the best centre depth in the NHL.
There, I said it. Don’t worry, i’m not pulling this statement out of thin air. After signing John Tavares to a 7-year, $77 million contract, the Toronto Maple Leafs have rocketed their offensive core to new heights.
As it stands now, the top three centremen are John Tavares, Auston Matthews, and Nazem Kadri – in that order. To put this in perspective, the Leafs now have 3 of the 8 centres in the NHL who have scored 30 goals or more in each of the past two seasons.
That’s absolutely crazy.
Toronto’s top three C’s compared to other teams
Bill Comeau tweeted out a handy chart that ranks the top three centres by team based on GAR (Goal’s Above Replacement) statistics from Chase McCallum.
If you are unaware of what GAR means and how it is determined, McCallum wrote a detailed blog post outlining the use and meaning of GAR. An excerpt from his post states that the stat “measures the total amount of goals a player adds to his team relative to a replacement level player, and tries to do so by taking everything a player does into account…if a break-even goal differential team gained a +20 GAR player, their goal differential would increase to +20”.
https://twitter.com/billius27/status/1014282948999335936
Upon further evaluation of the chart above, we can see that the Toronto Maple Leafs have moved past the Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins in centremen depth by adding John Tavares to what was already an impressive group with Just Matthews and Kadri.
Free agent signings provide boosts to centre depth
The Maple Leafs weren’t the only team to improve their depth at centre. The Edmonton Oilers, St. Louis Blues, and Vegas Golden Knights all benefited from free agent signings, further improving their standing. Not as much as the Leafs did though, as Tavares is ranked as a top three player in the NHL by GAR averaged over the last three seasons.
While Toronto may have the best three-man centre depth, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl edge out Matthews and Tavares as a top centre pairing. McDavid is just really good, what can you do?
Another variant that Comeau took note of was the fact that due to inadequate TOI, some players have yet to record a GAR. Some of the leagues top rookies have not yet recorded a GAR either. However, rookies maintain the ability to drastically increase their teams depth down the middle. Fluctuations are often noted after successful rookie season campaigns.
Hockey stats, like GAR, allow us to determine how Toronto’s centremen fair statistically when compared to the top three centremen of each NHL team. Of course, this is subject to change. The real test will begin when the 2018-19 season gets underway.
In the meantime, the stats seem to back up what should be glaringly obvious to everyone who watches the NHL: the Toronto Maple Leafs have the best centre Ice depth in the NHL.