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5 Reasons the Toronto Maple Leafs Blue-Line Is Better Than You Think

By James Tanner

GLENDALE, ARIZONA - NOVEMBER 21: Tyson Barrie #94 of the Toronto Maple Leafs during the NHL game against the Arizona Coyotes at Gila River Arena on November 21, 2019 in Glendale, Arizona. The Maple Leafs defeated the Coyotes 3-1. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
GLENDALE, ARIZONA - NOVEMBER 21: Tyson Barrie #94 of the Toronto Maple Leafs during the NHL game against the Arizona Coyotes at Gila River Arena on November 21, 2019 in Glendale, Arizona. The Maple Leafs defeated the Coyotes 3-1. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /
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Toronto Maple Leafs
Toronto Maple Leafs – Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly (Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images) /

Reasons # 1 and #2

  1. The Leafs always get more shot-attempts, shots, scoring chances, and high danger chances than they give up.

Say what you want about their team defense, it is an indisputable fact that teams that get more shots and scoring chances than their opponents are more likely to win than lose.

          2.  The Leafs are keeping their heads above water (3rd in the Atlantic going into Saturday’s game) despite a low PDO.

PDO is the combined total of a team’s shooting and save percentages.  Over a significant sample size a team’s PDO is likely to be 100.  Anything over, and the team is getting lucky, and anything less, and a team is getting unlucky.

Now, this isn’t an exact science and teams can outperform PDO for long periods of time.  The point is that in the history of NHL it has been shown that save percentages over .920 and team shooting percentages in the teens do not last for long.

The Leafs have the 20th highest PDO in the NHL, owing mostly to their 23 ranked goaltending.

The common objection to this stat is that the Leafs goaltending has been bad because the defense has been bad. I know it seem’s counter-intuitive, but if goaltending were totally linked to defense, it would be a lot easier to guess who would be the best goalies in the NHL ever year.

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