Why Toronto Maple Leafs Fans Should Be Cheering For Tampa

Tampa Bay’s Offense

Tampa Bay is the only team in the league that has an offense that can legitimately compete with the Leafs star-powered offense. With names such as Nikita Kurerov, Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, Yanni Gourde and the list goes on…

In fact, there is only one forward on the lightning that has a negative impact on offense is remarkable for a team to have. For context, an average offensive team such as Calgary finds themselves with over half of their 13 most used forwards having negative impacts offensively.

In terms of the player’s offensive ability on the backend with the likes of Shattenkirk, Hedman, and Sergachev Tampa is no slouch.

In terms of relative to the rest of the league, Tampa finds itself second in GF/60 and xGF/60 at 5v5. While their powerplay which started slowly is now up to 4th in the league with 9.12G/60. Here is a visual for their offense at 5v5 compared to league average;

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Chart from Micah Blake McCurdy’s Hockeyviz

Based on this chart, Tampa bay is 8% above the league average on offense at 5v5 which is in fact 3% lower than the Leafs 11% for good measure. The level that Tampa is able to create offense is remarkable, it is really tough to get that much offense from the center hash-marks area (the dense red area on the heatmap).

On top of Tampa’s ability to generate offense at an elite level, they have the ability to outperform their goal metrics with their star talent, similar to that of the Leafs. Tampa has a league-leading S% of 11.07% which may sound slightly high, but since they have sustained above 10% over the past few seasons I would not write it off as something that is unsustainable.

With all this said, Tampa clearly has the offensive power to compete with any team in the league even though it is obvious with the names on the roster, it is still important to note how remarkable the offense is. With a lethal powerplay, the ability to create so many high-quality chances at 5v5 and the shooting talent, this team is no joke when it comes to scoring goals.

Now that we have covered Tampa Bay’s ability to score goals, it is time to take a look at their ability to prevent goals.