Traditional Hockey Media Has No Idea how to Evaluate the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs extended their point streak to seven games last night.

The Toronto Maple Leafs showed once again they are a team with heart Doug Gilmour would be jealous of by refusing to quit when the game looked out of reach.

In the NHL, you’re basically done if you’re losing after two periods.  Unless you’re the Toronto Maple Leafs who have come back from multiple two goal third period deficits in the last week.

Last night was a fantastic game for Keefe’s Leafs.

Sure, the Leafs lost in overtime (on a coinflip) but they dominated that game and could have scored six, eight, even ten goals.

No matter how badly Jim Hughson was butchering the guys name, Alexandar Georgiev won the Rangers the game last night.

Anyone time you finish the game with a 58% Possession rating, it means you just destroyed your opponent.

51% of the shots, 56% of the scoring chances,57% of the high-danger chances, and 57% of the expected goals.

The difference was Andersen wasn’t hot and the NYR goalie played out of his mind.  And, as the Boston Bruins can tell you, a loss in OT isn’t really a loss.

Toronto Maple Leafs Are New, And people Are Confused

The Leafs have now ran the table for a 20% stretch of the NHL schedule.

They have beaten the best the NHL has to offer (St. Louis, Carolina), they’ve made crazy comebacks, and most of all, they’ve won games after game after game.

Since hiring Keefe, the Toronto Maple Leafs are the best in the NHL.

But what do the TV analysts do all game?  Complain about the Leafs lack of defense, as if this wasn’t a conscience choice.

Over and over and over they drone on about defense. They point out every little mistake, never bothering to talk risk/reward, or to give said mistake proper context.

On Friday, completely unbiased former Leafs GM Brian Burke trashed what is left of his reputation by trashing the Leafs and his replacement’s vision.

This despite the fact the Leafs have now been the NHL’s best team for a fifth of the schedule.

Burke on William Nylander’s three point (including the game winning goal) 72% CF performance: “I think he played four good minutes.”  If a more ridiculous thing has ever been said on a hockey broadcast, I haven’t heard it.

Now, objectively speaking, Nylander’s performance Friday night was one of the best individual games of any player in the NHL this season, but objectively has gone completely out the window.

How dare Kyle Dubas attempt to disrupt the old-boys club by focusing on offense?  Watching about six hours of Leafs broadcasts this weekend, if I didn’t know the truth, I never would have guessed I was watching a team that hadn’t lost a regulation game in three weeks; that was ravaging the NHL with back-to-back-to-back-to-back four goal performances.

Burke isn’t the only one, just the worst.  Dave Poulin said the NHL has figured out the Leafs (they have 17 of their last 20 points). It goes on and on.

These guys just can’t grasp someone in the NHL trying to do things differently.

Nylander and Tyson Barrie are the avatars they use to rip Dubas, because in the media it’s more acceptable to rip a player than a manager.  Despite the fact they’ve been two of the best players in the NHL since Keefe took over, you’d never know it from watching the broadcasts.

Barrie – who get’s criticism every day – is second in the NHL in 5v5 defenseman scoring since November 21st (when Keefe took over).   He has a 53% CF, and during this time the Leafs have gotten 67% of the goals when he’s on the ice.  That’s incredible, but even accounting for luck, he’s still expected to produce a rate of 55% goals-for.

Nylander has a 54% CF, 56% of the shots, 54% of scoring chances, and 54% of the expected goals under the new coach.  At all-strengths, he has 16 points in 17 games under the new coach, while posting strong defensive metrics.

This despite a 5% on-ice shooting percentage (about half what it normally would be). (All stats naturalstattrick.com).

Bottom line:  from an objective and statistical standpoint, Tyson Barrie and William Nylander are thriving under the new coach, and receiving an amount of criticism that doesn’t make sense, and is objectively inaccurate.

Therefore, the only logical conclusion a person can draw is that the media doesn’t understand how to evaluate a team that is winning by valuing different things than they do, and is thus taking petty shots at two players who are seen as stand-ins for the GM who has orchestrated a team in a way that they see as blasphemy.