Toronto Maple Leafs: Kyle Dubas has to Save Mike Babcock from Himself

The Toronto Maple Leafs are probably not going to make a coaching change.

Barring a five or ten game tailspin, Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock is probably pretty safe.

The coach has made some subtle changes from last season – no pucks off the glass, less dump ins, Matthews is playing more – and, most importantly, the team is off to a great start.

You might not like their record, but they’re the NHL’s best offensive team, and only a save percentage  under 90% has hurt them.  (Exactly one team last finished with a S% under 90%, so it’s a near-rock-solid guarantee that it’ll be better). (All stats naturalstattrick.com).

So Babcock is doing fine, mostly.  There is one thing that is sticking out like a sore thumb, and that is usage of Cody Ceci.

Toronto Maple Leafs, Babcock and Ceci

For reasons no one has been able to make clear, Babcock took to the airwaves mid-summer to announce that Cody Ceci would be a top four defenseman on his team.

This is a player who can move the puck, but is roundly considered one of the worst defensive players in the NHL.  A lot of people tried to justify this by saying how bad Ottawa was, but it really wasn’t a problem for Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Brady Tkachuk or Tomas Chabot.

Ceci plays like an AHL version of Morgan Rielly – he isn’t as good of a skater, passer or shooter, but he’s primarily a puck moving defenseman who isn’t great at defending.

The obvious move then is to pair him with Rielly and force them to face top competition, right?

Uh….

ON the surface, Ceci’s 51% possession rating is pretty good.  He and Rielly are facing the toughest possible competition, and coming out ahead of the game.

They are positive in shots, shot-attempts, scoring chances and goal differentials.   Can’t complain about that too much, but we’re talking only marginally positives.  51%, not 54%.

But we must also consider the amount of blown assignments that have led to goals so far.  Ceci looks overmatched most of the time, despite the OK stats.

It’s also just not typically a good to play your worst defenseman against the other teams best lines.  Just this week we’ve seen Babcock hard-match Ceci against the Bergeron and Ovechkin lines.

With Jake Muzzin available, that doesn’t make any sense.

Back to the positive stats for a second.  It is standard in hockey analytics that your teammates have a 5x bigger impact than your opposition.  Ceci’s most common linemates are an allstar team.

Rielly, Marner, Matthews, Tavares.   That’s his top four most common linemates.  Anyone is going to do allright in that situation.

So the question is, could a better player do better in these situations?  Are the Toronto Maple Leafs top players maxed out at slightly favorable differentials, or should they be doing better?

I think not only can they do better, but in order for the Toronto Maple Leafs to thrive, they have to.  You can’t settle for a lineup of Tavares, Marner, Matthews, Nylander and Rielly just slightly outdoing their competition.

Mike Babcock is crazy to hard-match Cody Ceci against top competition.  The Leafs need to rethink this strategy.

Perhaps Babcock plans on inserting Travis Dermott into Ceci’s role once he’s back, and is content to tread water until then.  Who knows.

But what is becoming increasingly clear is that Cody Ceci does not deserve to play in a top pairing role.  At best, he’s a five or  six.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have cap problems, and Ceci makes $4.5 million, whereas Kevin Gravel, Jordan Schwartz, Rasmus Sandin, Timothy Liljegren, and Ben Harpur all make $3.5 million less than he does, and can provide the same thing.

It’s about time for Kyle Dubas to save Babcock from himself.