Toronto Maple Leafs Underlying Metrics Paint Picture of Future Success

The Toronto Maple Leafs have not had a great start to the year.

After a pretty bad loss to the Blue Jackets, the Toronto Maple Leafs have a 5-3-2 record.

One common mistake people make is treating an O.T loss as a loss.  3v3 and shoot-outs feature extremely random results at the NHL level where even bad teams have enough good players to compete.

Additionally, getting a point is a big deal. If you win eight games and lose the rest in overtime, you’ll still probably make the playoffs.  Not that that can ever happen, but the point is that getting a point is a successful night.

Of the three games where the Toronto Maple Leafs failed to register a point, they deserved to win two of them (vs Washington and St. Louis).

If you consider that, in conjunction with their 5v5 stats, there is every reason for optimism and zero reason to think this team will be anything but one of the NHL’s top  teams when all is said and done.

Toronto Maple Leafs at 5v5

The Leafs currently sit 4th in the NHL with a 53% Corsi-For percentage.  They’ve also played between one and three games more than the teams ahead of them, making this number slightly stronger.

They aren’t a great defensive team, but if they always have the puck, they’re going to get great results because they’ve got extremely high shooting talent and a really good goalie.

The Leafs are fifth in 5v5 shots/60 and second in scoring chances/60 (and have played three more games than the #1 team).

They are fifth in goals/60 and 10th in shooting percentage, so that is going to go up too.

The Achilles’ heel of the Leafs so far has been goaltending.  Ten games in, and they’ve still got a 5v5 save percentage under .900.  (all stats 5v5 from naturalstattrick.com).

The bottom line is this: the Leafs are crushing teams at even strength.  If you throw out their tendency to take the first five or ten minutes of a game off, then these numbers get even stronger.

The funny thing is that the Leafs are minus 1 in goal differential at 5v5, despite their overall strong numbers.  Their PDO is under 100 and 19th in the NHL.

Taken all together, it’s highly unlikely that the Leafs will continue with a negative goal differential at 5v5.  Their shooting percentage and save percentages will rise for sure.

This means that the fact that they’re two games over .500 despite relatively bad luck over the first ten games is extremely encouraging.

Also contributing to their lackluster record so far is the fact that they’ve spent just 45 minutes on the power-play and 60 minutes killing penalties.

Overtime, it’s a near certainty that these numbers will even out.  It can be frustrating at times, but the ref’s don’t really have a conspiracy against the Leafs.

Still, the Leafs sit 19th in the NHL in total PP opportunities, despite playing the most games.  They are 5th in penalties taken, for a discrepancy of minus 6.

Overall, all signs point to the Leafs eventually putting everything together and being one of the NHL’s best teams.  The Leafs entered the year as one of the NHL’s Cup favorites.

There is absolutely no reason for that to have changed.  The stats suggest they’ll be better.

And we haven’t even talked about injuries. John Tavares is out for another week or two, and Travis Dermott and Zach Hyman are yet to even play a game.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are doing all right, all things considered. The fact that the stats suggest they should be doing even better, and that they’ll soon get three core players back, all but guarantees it.

Optimism for this team should remain extremely high.