Toronto Maple Leafs: Pre-Season Statistical Analysis

The Toronto Maple Leafs have defeated the Buffalo Sabres and the Ottawa Senators twice each so far in the pre-season for a 4-0 record.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are perfect so far through half their preseason schedule.  Cuts are expected anytime as the team wants to trim itself down to something approaching the regular season roster for the back half of the games.

What follows is a statistical analysis of the players from the first four games.

Keep in mind, that this is just for fun and that all statistics will feature extremely small sample sizes, making it difficult to draw any conclusions.

Still, we don’t have much to go on, and the results will be, at the very least, interesting.

Unless noted otherwise, all stats are from naturalstattrick.com and are 5v5 specific.

Stats

The preseason stats only appear to have three games, as, I assume, the game in Lucan wasn’t officially tracked.

Here are some notable achievements so far:

Auston Matthews and Jeremy Bracco have scored two 5v5 goals each in two games.  Bracco is the kind of speedy winger who has a high ceiling but might not ever make the NHL that is available for free basically every draft in the second and third rounds.  The Penguins have made an entire industry out of drafting these players and sticking them with Sidney Crosby.  With Bracco, SDA and Andreas Johnsson, just to name a few possible Jake Guentzals on the roster,  the Leafs appear to have learned this lesson.

Incredibly, Auston Matthews has ten shots in two games.  That is an impossible pace to keep – its’s 410 shots over 82 games in a league where 300 leads the league – but it is incredibly impressive.  Especially when you consider that it doesn’t include power-play shots.

Impressive also is Josh Jooris with five shots in just over 20 minutes, and John Tavares who had five shots in 14 minutes of 5v5 ice time in the one game recorded here.

Defenseman Stats

Most of the main battles in camp are on the blue-line.  Of the players who have played in two games Connor Carrick leads in ice time, but has only a 40% CF rating.  Not good, until you notice its only two games and a four shot differential.

Its extremely encouraging to see Carrick getting all this ice time, as it shows Babcock might have some idea of the player he actually has.  Carrick won the Leafs fitness contest earlier in camp, and he is their only “defensive” defenseman left over from last year’s roster.  (Gardiner, Rielly, Hainsey, Zatisev and Dermott can all be classified as ‘puck moving’ defenseman).

Everyone is hopeful -I’d say overly so – of recent UFA signing Igor Ozhimanov, and the one game recorded here did not go well.  In 17 minutes of ice time, he allowed a shots/60 of 37, which is brutal, even for the Leafs.   This is just one game, so I wouldn’t read too much into it, but a minus 6 shot differential (shots, not shot-attempts) and a 41% CF is a bad game, no matter how you read it.

Top Prospects Liljegren and Sandin had great games, if in sheltered third pairing minutes.  Total of 30 minutes ice time, and both players have kept the puck moving the right direction for a 57% CF.

While the stats are nice, they are super short samples and could change on a whim.  Still, they tell us how a player performed in the games they played much better than goals or assists do.

I would suggest ice-time is the biggest factor right now, and the Toronto Maple Leafs seem to be keen on watching Carrick, Rosen. Marincin and Zaitsev, as (among the players who’ve been in 2 games) they have the most ice time.

Also worth noting that, despite my dislike of his position on the roster, Ron Hainsey had an excellent game the other night, and put up some very nice stats.  If can to that every game, he’ll be good and I’ll shut-up about him.  He is, however, 37 so I doubt it.

Gardiner and Rielly are absolute locks to make the team, so no  point in discussing them too much.  They appear to have been fine.

With Dermott nursing an injury, and Babcock specifically mentioning him, it appears he may not make the team out of camp (still four games to go, however).

There are still four games to go, so anything can happen. This isn’t meant to be definitive, just a sample of what’s going on. The Toronto Maple Leafs resume their pre-season schedule tonight against the Montreal Canadiens.