Toronto Maple Leafs: These Marlies Are Actually Good

The Toronto Maple Leafs are required to be included in this sentence in order to please the SEO lords. I don’t make the rules, folks.

The Toronto Marlies are a good hockey team.

Sitting 7th in the AHL’s North Division with an underwhelming record of 6-7-2-1 somewhat clouds this notion. But, make no mistake, these Marlies are indeed #ActuallyGood.

(Shoutout Jeff Veillette).

It’s easy to place this current iteration alongside the Marlies’ Calder Cup-winning counterparts from the season prior and quickly deem the former a failure. On the surface, it’s not entirely close, either.

They were special.

Emboldened by an ability to outright dominate practically all facets of the sport, those who observed the 2017-18 Marlies merely assumed that they were the end product of a lab experiment – a team meticulously constructed by hockey’s most gifted scientists for the purpose of achieving AHL perfection.

For a moment, you’d be forgiven for believing that to be true. And while no hockey entity will ever prove themselves truly perfect, that one came achingly close.

Although, how different are these two teams, really?

In the AHL –  a league with near omnipresent roster turnover –  the Marlies opted to buck convention in September by returning 15 members from the prior year’s squad for another spin. The entire coaching staff even managed to stick together as well – save but for one name, goaltending coach Piero Greco, who left to take an NHL job on Long Island.

It’s important to note just how rare of a development this truly is, particularly in the context of a team fresh off of a Calder Cup and whose staff were assuredly subject to NHL job offers.

So, on paper, these Marlies are not drastically different.

The 2018-19 version has even put pucks in the net at a higher rate than last year’s, in fact. Sample size notwithstanding (this season is only 16 games old), these Marlies average roughly 4.06 goals per game compared to their 3.95 mark from 2017-18.

Pepper in how names like Kasperi Kapanen, Nikita Soshnikov, and Kerby Rychel – all of whom were or continue to be above-average to dominant scorers at the AHL level – remained property of the Marlies at this point in last season and assuredly front-loaded those totals, it makes this team’s recent accomplishments all the more impressive.

So, they can score goals. That’s cool. But we all knew that, right?

Well, it’s important this not be taken for granted.

Not only did the Marlies lose 3 of their 5 highest scoring forwards from last season in Ben Smith, Andreas Johnsson, and Miro Aaltonen, they were, in turn, forced to surrender 2 of their 3 most offensively inclined contributors on the backend in Justin Holl and Travis Dermott, as well.

Of the 15 aforementioned returning members, the majority takes shape in the form of rookies and sophomores. Nevertheless, these Marlies soldier on, filling the net with nary a hitch.

Maintaining what was, in the literal sense, a championship-calibre offensive attack in spite of their core’s depletion is an undoubtedly impressive achievement in the modern AHL and further speaks to the degree of scoring depth littered throughout the Leafs organization.

Holes left empty upfront by the departed Johnsson and Smith have thus far been filled by the emergence of Carl Grundstrom and a surprising breakout effort from Chris Mueller. Calle Rosen, Sheldon Keefe’s new favourite toy, has admirably elevated his own game in lieu of Dermott and Holl, and currently produces to the tune of over a point-per-game. Even Andreas Borgman, to a lesser extent, has followed suit with 10 points through 15 games of his own.

Whether this torrid pace can maintain itself over the course of an entire season remains to be seen. Funnily enough, what could in fact aide the Marlies’ unrelenting assault on opposing nets is their equally unrelenting inability to protect their own.

Case in point, this team cannot stop anything. Like, at all. And the increasingly likely reality of playing games in a perpetual state of catch-up may gear the score-effects in their favour.

The 2017-18 Marlies – for all their offensive firepower and defensive genius – were a predominantly net-driven team at their core. Boasting two NHL-calibre goaltenders in Garret Sparks and Calvin Pickard will be forever looked back upon as an unparalleled advantage in the AHL – where coaches rejoice on the rare occasion their team is afforded the services of one.

Sparks and Pickard finished the year with save percentages of .936 and .918, respectively. Among all netminders of whom logged a minimum of 30 games, both earned spots within the league’s top-10 in that category. In fact, no goaltender with at least one game played for the Marlies last season concluded their stint with a save percentage below .909.

That depth in net is nearly unprecedented, with practically no drop off from option 1A to 1B.

This year, no Marlie has thus far cracked the .900 benchmark. Jeff Glass, their most frequent starter, holds an unthinkably low save percentage of .841 across 10 games and the next man up, Kasimir Kaskisuo, hasn’t fared much better with a .871. That leaves Eamon McAdam; the Marlies’ lone modicum of stability and a thoroughly mediocre one at that.

McAdam, by the way,  holds a .898 save percentage through 5 games and began the year in the ECHL.

The 2017-18 Marlies scored the 3rd most goals of anyone in the AHL while allowing the fewest against, ultimately earning the team their league-best goal differential of +84.

2018-19 has them sitting at -2.

Of the top-5 AHL teams in terms of goals for, these Marlies stand as the lone name whose goal differential dips into the negatives and are joined by just one other, the Hartford Wolfpack, upon expanding the scope to the top-10.

No team can be rightfully expected to succeed when given such a dearth of net-centric support. Because, in spite of their record, these Marlies are good.

#ActuallyGood, in fact.

Saddled with significant personnel loss, they’ve nonetheless managed to ice a thoroughly solid blueline, even before uber-rookie Rasmus Sandin came along to boost it. Couple that with a forward corps finding new life under the developmental progressions of Trevor Moore and Mason Marchment, the Marlies’ deploy an offence which has statistically gone toe-to-toe with their thought-to-be unmatchable prior counterparts at the quarter mark of the season.

All that remains missing is a goaltender. Preferably, one whose save percentage rests comfortably above the .900 Mendoza line, therein accomplishing what many thought to be the bare minimum of the position.

If these Marlies can somehow overcome that, it may wind up their most impressive feat of all.

All stats courtesy of theahl.com