Toronto Maple Leafs vs Blue Jackets 5v5 Analysis

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets will finally get under way today.

The 5v5 game state is the most important out of any and the Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets will likely spend plenty of time playing at 5v5 given both teams don’t take too many penalties.

As many are likely well aware, the Leafs and Blue Jackets are polar opposites of each other. The Leafs are great at offense but poor a defense. The Blue Jackets are bad at offense but great at defense.

Let’s dig into the big picture 5v5 numbers for both teams.

What we will look at is the percentage of expected goals(xGF%), shot attempts (CF%), and the goals for (GF%).

Any team above 50% is effective overall if you have more scoring chances, shots, and goals you’re doing a good job.

Thus let’s get to the numbers:

Columbus Blue Jackets:
51.66xGF%

48.87CF%

50.55GF%

Toronto Maple Leafs:
51.62xGF%

52.28CF%

50.29GF%

All data from Evolving Hockey 

As you may have noticed both teams are basically neck in neck in when it comes to these numbers overall. This is especially the case when it comes to xGF%.

I tend to put more weight into the xGF% since it gives us data based on shot location, and there is enough happening over 70 games that the correlation is likely strong. And if I were to use only GF%, this would be flawed since it is not very replicable and highly influenced by S% and Sv%.

Teams generally don’t end up this tight in numbers but here we are. And the more interesting part is that both teams have put up these results in completely separate ways.

Let’s break down each team’s strengths and weaknesses at 5v5 and what they did to get to these numbers.

Toronto Maple Leafs 5v5

With the likes of the Leafs offensive talented players, they were able to thrive on a formula that generates waves of high danger chances, places emphasis on offensive zone puck possession, and finishes on their chances more often than other teams.

At even-strength, the Leafs generated expected goals at the 4th best rate in the NHL with 2.61xGF/60, goals for 6th best in the NHL with 2.74GF/60, and shot attempts 4th best in the NHL with 60.40CF/60.

These numbers were even stronger if you take away the period before Keefe was put in charge of the bench.

What is clear is that the Leafs are at the top of the league in every offensive category we have to date, and it is no mistake because the Leafs are as good as anyone in the league at scoring goals.

With the offensive talent that the Leafs have there is no team better than them at scoring goals, it is their forte.

If you are really interested in learning more about the Leafs best player, I recommend this video here. It goes further in-depth as to why Matthews is the sole best 5v5 goal scorer in the league.

I like to point to this game here against the Hurricanes earlier in the season that shows what the Leafs have to offer (and this goes for the defense as well which we will cover)

Now that we have got that over with we have to move on to the Leafs widely known weakness, their defensive game.

Just in that wild game against Carolina, the team allowed 6 goals against.

To get a more clear perspective, let’s take a look at the defensive numbers the same way we did with the offensive numbers.

At 5v5 the Leafs defensive numbers are as follows. The Toronto Maple Leafs are 18th in expected goals against with 2.45xGA/60, 27th in goals against with 2.74GA/60, and 14th in shot attempts against with 55.14CA/60.

As you can tell unsurprisingly these numbers are not ideal in any manner for a team competing for the Stanley Cup.

The Toronto Maple Leafs as an entire group tend to struggle in their own end besides a few select players. As plenty of their players have gotten better over the years at defending (Matthews), there is still a lot of work to be done.

I tend to point to core players such a Tavares or Rielly who are excellent offensively but tend to falter on the defensive side of things. Both seem to represent the teams’ identity well.

If this were NHL the video game, most of the Leafs players would have really low defensive awareness but high offensive awareness.

Columbus Blue Jackets 5v5

Losing hart trophy candidate Artemi Panarin is a loss that no team would be able to come out the same.

John Tortorella and the Blue Jackets had to fully revamp the playstyle and opt for a heavily defensive game because the scoring talent is not there anymore. Tortorella and the roster deserve plenty of credit for what they have been able to accomplish this season.

With Panarin departing, among others, the Blue Jackets only have a few players who are able to contribute offense at an efficient level.

Most of their players strictly bring a defensive presence. A prime example of this is Riley Nash who is one of the best bottom-6 defensive centers but can only contribute offense at a level of Frederik Gauthier.

Nevertheless, let’s dig into the Blue Jackets offensive numbers.

The Blue Jackets sit 28th in expected goals for with 2.22xGF/60, 28th in GF/60 with 2.14GF/60, and 24th in shot attempts for with 53.63CF/60.

Again, clearly the Blue Jackets seem to struggle as a whole on the offensive side of things. The players have a hard time getting shots off from the high danger area and rarely get chances off the rush.

The Blue Jackets defensemen tend to take more shots than the forwards at times which is problematic since the defensemen are shooting from farther away.

In every situation, defensemen will always end up with a lower S% than forwards in the long run solely due to the shot locations. This is why Morgan Rielly is extremely unlikely to get another 20 goal season ever again, a lot of his goals were luck-based and unsustainable.

Now let’s move on to the Blue Jackets’ main strength, defense.

The Blue Jackets sit 3rd in expected goals against with 2.08xGA/60, 5th in goals against with 2.09GA/60, and 18th in shot attempts against with 56.11CA/60.

Clearly, this shows that the Blue Jackets are the best of the best at limiting the opponent from getting anywhere near the net.

It’s almost as if the Blue Jackets goaltenders have been social distancing from the opposing players, because, against the Blue Jackets, attacking players rarely get within 6 feet of the goaltender.

If I were a coach I would be using clips of the blue jackets to show my team how they are able to keep the attacking players to the outside of the ice.

However, it is more than just keep other teams to the outside, the whole attitude and strategy for the Blue Jackets is built upon a full defensive buy-in.

Seth Jones put it well in an interview earlier in the season:

 ”It’s just buying into how we play the game and being mentally sharp. We pride ourselves in not cheating on that side of the puck in searching for offense or in giving up plays defensively around our net for the sake of playing offense.”

The defense-first attitude is what separates the Blue Jackets from an average defensive team, they truly strive to play low event hockey.

Jack Han now of The Athletic broke down how the Blue Jackets breakout is centered around focusing strictly on flooding the strong side of the ice to have options for short chips up the ice or one-two passing plays.

The reason they use this strategy is to reduce the chances of a costly turnover occurring in the neutral zone. But the limited amount of space on one side of the ice limits the chances of creating rush chances and breakaways.

The reason for this breakout style is to limit offense against.

A tactic such as their breakout goes to show the team’s number one goal isn’t to generate offense, it’s to prevent goals against. The Blue Jackets will put defense first in every way possible.

I even embarked on how they get caught having this attitude on the powerplay here.

Furthermore, let’s take a look at more of the common strategies employed by both teams

Key Approaches To Each Teams 5v5 Game

Forechecking

After explaining how well the teams are both offensively and defensively at 5v5, there are a couple of key elements to the way both teams blueprint will work going into this series.

After both losses to the Bruins in 2018 and 2019, it is clear that the Bruins targeted the Toronto Maple Leafs weaker right defensemen on the forecheck hard, and ended up having plenty of success in doing so.

Just like the Bruins, the Blue Jackets are a team that has a heavy forecheck. The Blue Jackets have the second most scoring chances off the forecheck, and the most goals off the forecheck.

Because the Blue Jackets don’t have the offensive skill of other teams, they rely on waiting for the other team to make mistakes with the puck to pounce on and score on. They are unlike the Leafs who create opportunities for themselves, the Blue Jackets make the opponent create opportunities for them.

The Blue Jackets don’t score often but when they do it’s generally off the cycle or off the forecheck.

With the Toronto maple Leafs defensemen being notorious at giving up pucks in their own end, and the Leafs as a whole being among the worst teams at stopping the cycle.

This is something the Blue Jackets may be able to take full advantage of as the Blue Jackets are among the best at scoring off the cycle.

With that being said, under Sheldon Keefe, the Leafs have employed a few different and intriguing breakout strategies and seem to be better than ever before at exiting the zone with control.

The organization has put major emphasis on helping players learn to exit the zone effectively.

The Leafs are the close to the best in the business at exiting the zone with possession only trailing behind the Avalanche in this category.

With the speed and skill of the Leafs players, Sheldon Keefe has emphasized changing sides and creating as much movement as possible to open up space on the ice for either short breakout passes or even now some use of stretch passes seem to be back in the fold.

Although the way the Leafs breakout the puck is riskier than other methods, it is extremely effective and rewarding when done properly.

With the diversity on the breakout, it will be hard for the Blue Jackets to game plan against it, and any team as a matter of fact.

Blocking Shots

Blocking shots has been a key strategy for the Blue Jackets, as they block a higher percentage of shots than any other team.

With the defensive attitude the Blue Jackets generate, it is no surprise they block a large number of shots since they are able to keep other teams to the outside so effectively.

With the Leafs high octane offense it will be hard to keep the Leafs shooters without getting shots on net but I am confident the Blue Jackets won’t make it easy on the Leafs.

Almost every Blue Jackets player is competent defensively but there are some that have minor weaknesses that may not be able to keep up with the talent the Leafs have to offer.

Some of my favorite writers in the hockey world have written about how Jones is overrated pointed out exactly why. here, here and here.

With little missteps from players every once in a while which will happen more often against the Toronto Maple Leafs than not, the Blue Jackets don’t have a perfect defense.

The third clip in this video exemplifies what I am expressing, Marner completely toys with Werenski. If Marner is able to do this consistently throughout the series, the Blue Jackets may have some trouble.

Those were two keys to the games that I thought were important to point out, now I think it’s important to check out how the players match up against each other.

Toronto vs Columbus Forward Matchups

Arvid of Pension Plan Puppets wrote two excellent pieces on how the Blue Jackets players are used by coach John Tortorella which I highly recommend you check out, but he really put together how much each player will play and how will each player be used.

I will dig into the matchups that we’ll likely see in the series.

To begin let’s take a look at the forward lines and how the Blue Jackets forwards match up with the Leafs forwards.

Forward Matchup

If you were to go to search up the Columbus Blue Jackets forward lines and put them head to head with the Leafs, I’m quite positive that you’d contemplate the Leafs forward group as miles better. Although the Leafs forwards might be slightly better (which we’ll get to), the matchup isn’t completely lopsided.

The Toronto Maple Leafs forwards offensively would storm the Blue Jackets in that manner. But on the other end defensively the Blue Jackets forwards would destroy the Leafs forwards from top to bottom.

Rightfully so, offensive players get the bulk of the attention in the media and from fans because their talent is easy to point out. Defensively excellent players really miss out on this and tend to be underrated more often than not.

To reiterate my point, the names Marner, Matthews, Nylander, and Tavares should scare any team’s goaltender and defensemen.

While the names, Nick Foligno, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Gustav Nyquist, Boone Jenner, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Cam Atkinson, and Alexander Wennberg probably won’t scare the goaltender or defensemen. But, they sure should scare the Leafs forwards.

Like I’ve pointed out, the Blue Jackets’ suppression of scoring chances is their identity, and that is not just the defensemen who play a role, it’s the whole team.

The top-3 players without a doubt are Bjorkstrand, Dubois, and Foligno. It seems as if they will be starting on the top line altogether. This first line isn’t the Marchand-Bergeron-Pasternak line but it is very effective and no slouch at all.

Bjorkstrand for my money is among the most underrated player in the league with his combination of a sneaky offense with a great shot, and elite shot suppression.

Foligno should be a Selke candidate, as he is better than anyone at playing the best players in the world and limiting their offense.

In fact, he should have been nominated for the Selke multiple times before, in my opinion. Foligno he is legitimately talented defensively.

Then the Blue Jackets number one center, Dubois is very effective offensively but doesn’t have the defensive numbers like the other players. Dubois is used in offensive situations most of the time as he has the speed, power, and skill of a number 1 center.

The first line for the Blue Jackets is no slouch at all, but when we run into the second line this is where the Blue Jackets run into trouble.

The second line includes Atkinson, Nyquist, and either Jenner or Wennberg. Both Atkinson and Nyquist seem to have a clear top-6 ability and put up very respectable second line results, but it is the centreman of either Jenner or Wennberg who clearly don’t have the second line capability.

In the past two seasons, Wennberg has 7 goals in 132 games, which is not ideal to have as your second-line center. Wennberg seems to thrive on the defensive end which he is effective at, but having a player who scores goals at that rate in your top-6 is problematic to me.

Boone Jenner is another player who I believe is even worse than Wennberg because his defensive numbers aren’t close to the same level and the offense doesn’t seem to be good enough for a top-6 role. It seems as if he is a player being asked to do more than he’s capable of.

If the Blue Jackets decide to load up the top line, the Leafs will have a major advantage playing either the Tavares-Marner or Matthews-Nylander combo against one of Jenner or Wennberg. This is where the Toronto Maple Leafs will really have to capitalize.

For the bottom-6 of the Columbus Blue Jackets, it is a roundup of capable defensive players with only a few such as Alexandre Texier and possibly rookie Liam Foudy having any sort of offensive firepower to them.

The rest of the bottom-6 is much like Riley Nash who as explained earlier is a good version of Gauthier who limits offense very well but creates no offense.

The Toronto Maple Leafs bottom-6 may be able to capitalize on some opportunities but I suspect they will have a limited amount with the defensive depth on forward and on defense which we’ll get to in a moment.

It would be nice for the Leafs third line to create some offense as they did against the habs, but it will definitely be harder than it was against the habs.

The real advantage for the Leafs is for one of the top-2 lines to really make a difference. The Leafs paid for high-end talent and they’re going to need it against the Blue Jackets now more than ever before.

Conclusion

With the Toronto Maple Leafs heavy powered offensive ability, I think it will be hard for any team to not have trouble with. On the other hand with the Blue Jackets’ exceptional structure and defensive talent, it will be hard for the Leafs offense to produce the way it generally has.

I know I have been back and forth like crazy, but this is because the series is such a tight one, and the matchup is so close it’s hard to really have full confidence in either team. I wrote a bit about how close the series truly is here.

If this Blue Jackets roster had another top-6 forward I think I would take them in this series quite easily.

With the waves of offense that the Leafs have I can see a point where the Leafs just out talent the Blue Jackets and score more often than they do.

The biggest lineup mismatch to me is the presence of either Jenner or Wennberg on the second line, one of whom will be spending a lot of time against either the Matthews or Tavares line.

I do see the Blue Jackets defensemen having an advantage overall compared to the Leafs defensemen. Although, the Blue Jackets defensemen aren’t perfect in any regard and will have a big task up ahead.

With such a long layoff, it’s hard to really predict who will have the edge. It will be up to who shows up more ready to play.

Every little detail in the game will matter, especially in a 5 game series.

If the Blue Jackets are able to disrupt the Leafs breakout and get the Leafs caught in their own zone, this could go really bad for the Leafs.

On the other hand, if the Blue Jackets fail to adapt to the speed and deceptiveness of the Leafs forwards, the Leafs could easily get hot and sweep.

Getting quality shots will be tough for Toronto, but with the shooting talent and playmaking on the Leafs roster, they have the potential to win by outshooting the Blue Jackets.

This is easily the best series of the qualifying round, I think a lot of people are going to tune into it. Both teams are very strong in their own manner and either could go the distance in my mind.

Whoever shows up first on Sunday will make all the difference in who will come out on top. I expect both coaches to have some tricks up their sleeves, so this will be fascinating to watch play out.