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.