The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost three of four games.
The honey moon phase is over under Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe, and the team looks………
Actually wait a minute.
Let’s get a grip on reality here.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have one of the best rosters in the NHL.
It is ONLY December 5th. They just played their first game in almost a year with a fully healthy lineup. (Technically they’re still missing Trevor Moore, but he’s not exactly a difference maker).
It takes some time to learn new systems and strategies, and it’s hard to do when you play a game every other night.
There are some extremely positive signs under the new coach, and if you can divorce yourself from the results for five minutes, it’s easy to see.
Toronto Maple Leafs Just Getting Unlucky
They have run into three straight hot goalies. Sure, they’re not playing perfect games, but who does? If not for a very unusual Spezza gaffe, and an incredible Colorado goalie, the Leafs win last night.
If not for hot goalies they would have been up by multiple goals in the first period against Buffalo and Philly in games they recently lost.
Since Keefe took over, the Leafs have positive differentials in shot-attempts, shots, scoring chances, high-danger scoring chances, expected goals, and goals.
Play enough games with those stats and hot goalies and bad luck won’t matter.
The Leafs 5v5 save percentage under Keefe is 92%, good for 16th in the NHL over this time period. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
They are shooting just 6.9% because of course they are. With a 10% shooting percentage (much more in line with this team’s talent) they’d be 7-0. This is a random facet of the game that sometimes screws your team over. It’s one of the reason’s that analysis has to go deeper than just results.
The Leafs should have a better record under Keefe.
Since Keefe took over, William Nylander and Auston Matthews are absolutely amazing. They are getting 60% of the shots, but they are getting unlucky.
They have scored just 40% of the goals, but have a 60% expected goals rating.
Matthews has a PDO of 95, and Nylander’s is 91 since Keefe took over. Given enough time, a player will always have a PDO of 100, so anything less is unlucky. 95 is extremely unlucky, 91 is just berserk.
The Mathews and Nylander combination is getting about a 5% on-ice shooting percentage. That’s just crazy low.
The Leafs have just three PP goals in their last seven games. Matthews has none of them.
The point here is that in light of the bad play that got Babcock fired, the Leafs recent results don’t look any different. But if you did deeper, you can see a much improved team.
The fact that Matthews and Nylander are not producing over the last couple games should be completely ignored. They are playing fantastic. The goals will start to go in in bunches.
Eventually, the Leafs power-play will get hot. Eventually they’ll go on a PDO bender. They’ll play a stretch of games where the team is relatively healthy.
The fact is, projecting the season’s future based on the games played to date is not fair. This is one of the best teams in hockey, and eventually they’ll go on a hot streak that makes us forget the first two months of this season.