Toronto Maple Leafs: Frederik Andersen Needs to Play Less

The Toronto Maple Leafs Frederick Andersen was excellent last season.

With the off-season drawing closer to an end, the excitement of a brand new hockey season is slowly growing. While we await the 2018-19 campaign, there are a number of thoughts likely racing through the minds of many Toronto Maple Leafs fans.

One of those probably being how the team should handle Frederik Andersen’s starts for the coming season.

The 2017-18 season was Andersen’s second year on the team and to say he had an incredible season would be an understatement. He recorded a .918 SV%, 2.81 GAA, 5 shutouts, and set the franchise record with 38 wins. He did it while his team allowed some of the highest shots against totals in the NHL.

These are great numbers for sure, but there is more to the story.  Andersen had a heavy workload throughout the entire campaign, facing 2,211 shots and making 2,029 saves (both are league highs according to NHL.com) and had the second most starts with 66, second only to Cam Talbot (67) of the Edmonton Oilers.

Let’s focus on Andersen’s starts because it could play a role in how the Leafs do this coming season.

Frederick Andersen

Since Andersen was traded from the Anaheim Ducks in the summer of 2016, he has been the Buds’ undisputed starter. Mike Babcock has subsequently given Andersen a large number of starts, which has made Curtis McElhinney used rarely these days.

McElhinney, fresh off a season where he posted an impressive .934 SV%, 2,14 GAA, and 3 SO, only started in 15 games. Out of all his starts, 12 of them coming on the second half of a back-to-back.

What this suggests is Babcock has more faith in Andersen and mainly puts McElhinney in the net when it’s either a back-to-back situation or having to switch goalies on a rare off-night. Combine this with Andersen’s heavy workload, it’s possible that he was out of gas once the playoffs started.

Andersen’s numbers during this postseason highlight a considerable drop-off:  he recorded a .896 SV%, 3.76 GAA, and faced 221 shots across 7 games.

There’s another reason why the Leafs need to do something about Andersen’s workload, and one needs to look no further than the reigning Stanley Cup champions: the Washington Capitals.

Braden Holtby has been their top goalie since the lockout-shortened season and has been a key factor in the Capitals overall success in that span. In looking at his numbers I noticed something telling about the number of his starts.

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From 2014-15 to 2017-18, Holtby had 72, 66, 63, and 54 starts, which is an average of 64 starts per year. As a result, his backup goalie(s) appeared in 10, 16, 19, and 28 starts during that same span, which averages to 18 starts a season.

Is it a coincidence that the year Holtby had the fewest starts is also the Cup-winning year?  It’s possible that because Holtby got less than 60 starts this past year, it may have helped him and his team in the playoffs.

Upcoming Season

If you look at the previous Cup winners since the 2009-10 season, each team saw their starters average roughly 51 starts and their backups average nearly 27 starts. The 2012 Los Angeles Kings were the only team to win the Cup with their starter getting over 60 starts in the regular season (68).

Obviously, these numbers don’t tell the whole story, but there appears to be a trend. This isn’t to suggest that the sole reason nearly all of these teams won the Cup was that their starters had less than 60 regular season starts, but having a fresher goalie could have played a key role in their team’s playoff performance.

Back to the Leafs, it’s certainly possible that giving Andersen fewer starts this season could help the team once the postseason arrives, assuming they make it of course. So how can they tackle this problem?

Fortunately for the Leafs, they have two options available to them from their farm team in Garret Sparks and Calvin Pickard, who are each capable of being NHL goaltenders. Both performed well with the Marlies last season, while Sparks had a huge role in the team capturing the 2018 Calder Cup.

It has been reported by Sportsnet that Pickard has been put on the trade block, so assuming he is moved the Leafs can still adapt their backup goalie strategy with what they have.

Perhaps the Toronto Maple Leafs can run a three-goalie system between Andersen, Sparks, and McElhinney, where Babcock alternates between the latter two players accordingly.  This way the backups can combine for roughly 25-30 starts overall and gives Andersen some much-needed rest during the regular season.

Alternatively, other solutions could include a free agent goalie signing or a trade. As previously mentioned, Pickard could be on the move so perhaps the Leafs are already up to something in that department.

In short, how the Leafs handle the workload of both Andersen and his backup goalie(s) will be one of the key storylines to follow for the 2018-19 season. Facing a heavy workload while starting over 60 games potentially impacted his postseason performance, which included a couple of off-nights the Leafs could not afford.

Clearly, McElhinney hasn’t done enough to prove to Babcock he can help ease Andersen’s starts significantly. I’m sure Kyle Dubas and company are looking into this and it’s plausible that we will get a clearer picture of the backup goalie position once training camp gets underway.

For a team that has aspirations of going deep in the playoffs, lowering Andersen’s starts could potentially play a role in making that a reality.

All stats unless otherwise noted are from Hockey-Reference.com.