Comparing the Toronto Maple Leafs to Other NHL Teams

Down the Middle

Having a high-end #1 centre is probably the most important factor on a hockey team that can be controlled. Obviously a goalie is the most important position on any team, but there is virtually no consistency or predictability at the position.

I don’t think it’s an egregious appeal to authority to suggest that depth and star down the middle as a foundation for NHL team building is a nearly unanimous belief among people who care about such things.

So centres are key.

Goalie would be, except that, for all anyone knows, a career back-up like Darcy Kuemper or Tomas Greiss could come out of nowhere and become the best goalie in the NHL.  The position is vitally important, but position players are far more likely to replicate their success, which means they are much easier to predict.

Therefore, centre is the most important position, and the Toronto Maple Leafs are easily the best in the NHL at this position.

Auston Matthews has few peers.  At worst you might be able to come up with a statistical argument that Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon are better players.  Matthews is younger, and superior at both defense and goal scoring to both of those guys, but he is a victim of his own consistancy in that he started out his career as the best 5v5 goal scorer in the NHL, and has been that ever since.  I think once the team wins something, Matthews will need to be content being underrated in the “best player” conversations.

At worst, he is the third best player in the NHL, but many prominent analysts don’t even consider him the third best centre.  Regardless, if we look at the 1-2 punch of every other NHL team, only the Oilers, Penguins and Lightning can possibly be said to be in the same class as the Leafs at the position.

Malkin and Crosby are in their mid-thirties and have declined significantly from their lofty peaks.  They are still insanely good, but Matthews/ Tavares is better today.  (All WAR stats from @jfresh via evolving-hockey.com).

The Pittsburgh combo was worth 3.5 WAR last year while Auston Matthews alone was worth 3.3.

Both Tampa and the Oilers regularly deploy their elite centres on the wing, and so the Leafs are easily the NHL’s best team down the middle.   As for the other two lines, Alex Kerfoot is one of the NHL’s best third line centres, but the Leafs also have the option of Hall of Famer Joe Thornton.

As long as your bottom six isn’t actively hurting you, its more important to have star power on the top two lines, and that’s what the Leafs have.  Even if their bottom-six is nothing but average, and I think it is quite a bit better than average, they’ve still got the best lineup in the NHL down the middle.

On the Wing

In the NHL, high-end skill is the biggest factor in who wins (other than luck, since it is, after all, a professional league with a salary cap where the differences between players are marginal).

The Toronto Maple Leafs wingers are nearly as well s tocked on the wing as they are at centre. Their strength comes from Mitch Marner and William Nylander, both of whom are top ten NHL wingers.  In my analysis, an “elite” player is anyone who falls in the 10 to 15% of players who actually move the needle in terms of game impact.  Both Marner and Nylander are among the best of the best, both in the top 2 to 5% of wingers.

The Leafs depth is also solid at this position and their depth isn’t impacted at all by their commitment to the studs and duds salary cap approach.

On left wing the Leafs have Zach Hyman, Ilya Mikheyev, Nick Robertson and Wayne Simmonds.  They could also throw in Alex Barabanov or Jimmy Vessey for depth, and they have an elite option in William Nylander if in fact his move to left wing turns out to be permanent.

Last year playing top six minutes on left wing, Alex Kerfoot provided elite defense and scored at the same 5v5 rate as John Tavares.  With multiple potentially elite players and option to use Kerfoot or Nylander on the left side, it’s an embarrassment of riches.

On Right wing, the Leafs have Marner, possibly Nylander, and a bunch of solid depth options, the same as listed above.  Overall its an embarrassment of riches.

Two elite players, and two (Hyman and Kerfoot) who have a history of occasionally crossing the threshold into elite territory.  Barabanov, if he’s as good as advertised, and Mikheyev give the Leafs a ton of depth up front.

Nick Robertson, if he makes the team likely makes it because he’s an elite goal scorer.  If he’s any good in the NHL as a rookie the entire team is elevated by the addition of another weapon.

The Leafs third and fourth lines have so many options that they could dress a fifth line (say Vessey-Engvall-Simmonds) that would be as good as most of the NHL’s third line.

I think its safe to say with two high-end superstars, at least four players who could potentially move the needle (Robertson, Hyman, Mikheyev, Kerfoot) that the leafs are among the best in the NHL at forward.

Looking at their rosters, only Tampa is anywhere close in terms of depth, and their team is up in the air still due to salary cap concerns.  Other than Tampa, I dont’ think anyone can match up with anything approximating the Matthews/Tavares/Nylander/Marner.  The mix of depth and high-end talent makes the Toronto Maple Leafs among the best in the NHL at forward.

They are definitely the best at centre, and at worst, top five on the wing, and top three for depth.  Even if you prefer Las Vegas and Tampa, it would be ridiculous to put Toronto any lower than third.

Toronto Maple Leafs Blue Line

Funny to say this after all the ink spilled by people deriding the Leafs blue line, but its now the deepest in the NHL.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have eleven NHL quality defensemen.  Rielly, Brodie, Muzzin, Holl, Dermott, Sandin, Liljegren, Rosen, Bogosian, Lehtonen and Marincin.

I went through every team in the league and no one else has anything close to that. In fact, almost every team is dressing a player on their third pairing who would be highly unlikely to make the Leafs, given the competition.

Yes, I understand that Lehtonen has never played in the NHL, but you don’t rip up the KHL like he’s doing if you can’t at least cut it as a replacement NHL player.  Sandin and Liljegren are rookies, but neither would be the worst player in the NHL if they played regularly. Marincin is – despite his unpopularity – a player who is constantly effective when he plays.  The depth is great, but what about the high-end talent?

Morgan Rielly has been better than Victor Hedman for two of the last three year (by WAR) and doesn’t seem to get his due as a legitimate #1 stud defenseman.  Despite an injury filled year last season, he  is just that.

TJ Brodie was worth just under 2 Wins last year, while Jake Muzzin was worth just over 2.  This makes them better than 87% of defensemen, and classifies both players as elite. While the Leafs have three great options for their top pairing, I think all three of Muzzin, Brodie and Rielly are underrated to some degree, lessoning the love people have for this blueline.

Justin Holl, while he may not do it again, played some of the NHL’s toughest minutes last year while posting better statistics than Colton  Parayko.

Travis Dermott has been one of the NHL’s best third-pairing players over the last couple of years.  Rasmus Sandin projects to be a star player, possible a #1, definitely a top pairing player on a good team.

It’s clear when you look into the Leafs blueline that its now one of the best in the NHL.  Few teams can match their top three, and no one can touch their depth.

Analyzing the Toronto Maple Leafs

If we go by total number of elite players, which is to say players that tend to have a significant impact on the results of games,  the Toronto Maple Leafs, with seven, are the best team in the NHL.   Of those players, the three most important ones are all still improving and are yet to peak.

If we go by depth, the Leafs are the best team in the NHL.

lf we go by recent results, they are not good at all.

So how does all this fit together? Do players decline? Improve? What is the chemistry like? There are too many unknown factors to call the Leafs the best team, but they’re certainly up there.

Last year the Avalanche led the NHL in PDO, and suddenly their everyone’s favorite, but a player by player comparison shows that the Leafs are a decidedly better team.

The Leafs goaltending is a bit of a question mark because Freddie Andersen is coming off his worst season ever, but the additions of Jack Campbell and Aaron Dell should lighten his load considerably.

Goaltending is a wildcard anyways.  The Islanders are nearly worse than the Senators, but they hid that fact convincingly by getting high quality goaltending.  The Leafs were the opposite – they put up team stats on par with Tampa (once Babcock was fired) and were destroyed by their lousy goaltending.

I trust Andersen to bounce back, but like injuries and shooting-percentage benders, goaltending is largely out of anyone’s control.

Just based on the forwards and defense, I think the Toronto Maple Leafs are, objectively speaking, a top team in the NHL.  Of course there is a degree of subjectivity, and I also know that having failed to thus far win a playoff round, many people aren’t interested in anything else.

That’s fine.

The Leafs should be classified with Boston, Tampa, Las Vegas, Carolina and possibly Colorado as a group of teams that are a cut above the rest of the league.

If there is, as rumored, an All Canadian Division, it will hardly be fair.  The Oilers have the elite talent to compete, but every other Canadian team is actively bad.  Winnipeg isn’t even a playoff team if their goalie regresses at all (which is a given), and Montreal is OK at best.

The Leafs took Calgary’s best defenseman (by last year’s stats, at least) and the Canucks had a brutal offseason. Ottawa just hopes they finally win a draft lottery.

In the end, I realize that until the Toronto Maple Leafs win something, people will doubt their roster.  But if you just focus on the roster as it appears on paper, the Leafs are among the best in the NHL.

Maybe the best.