Hello Toronto Maple Leafs fans.
I have been reading and writing about the Toronto Maple Leafs all year, even though there has only been five games in the last nine or so months. I think, anyways, I don’t really have a concept of time anymore.
In these nine months, I may have lost the perspective of time, but since I spend so much of it on the Leafs I’ve got what I assume is a unique perspective on the team, because every day people tell me their opinions about the Leafs and all of their players.
One thing I know for a fact is that, on the whole, Leafs fans do not believe that Justin Holl is going to keep his job in the Leafs top four. This is wrong.
Justin Holl keeps his job, at least until someone steals it from him or he shows that last year was a fluke. This is a guarantee. The Toronto Maple Leafs are the NHL’s biggest proponent of analytics. That is a vague term and can mean a lot of things, but one thing it definitely means is that the Leafs do what the numbers tell them to do.
The Toronto Maple Leafs and Justin Holl
Therefore, if the Leafs found a right handed, top-four defenseman who put up incredible numbers, they are not going to demote him based on his not being a name-brand player. Like anyone else, Holl is going to have to earn the right to keep his job, but right now he has, without any doubt, earned the right to start season paired with Jake Muzzin in the Leafs top-four.
T.J Brodie is a lefty, as are Sandin, Dermott and Lehtonen. The three guys who could conceivably take his job (and no, it is not conceivable that a team as analytic as the Leafs play Zach Bogosian on a top pairing) all shoot the wrong way, so Holl has a leg up already.
Two of the NHL D who started the least amount of shifts in the OZone.
— Editor in Leaf (@EditorinLeaf) October 11, 2020
64 GP 1228 TOI 49.41 CF% 51.67 SF% 48.04 X GF% 49 % SCF 45% HDSC
68 GP 1082 TOI 51.80 CF% 52.24 SF% 52.99 X GF% 52.86 SCF% 51.57% HDSC
Player A is Colton Paryko, player B is Justin Holl.
Look at that tweet above. Look at the stats. They are incredible. Despite playing some of the toughest minutes in the NHL, the Leafs were winning 53% of the time when Holl was playing. That is very, very good. (All stats from naturalstattrick.com).
Out of 99 NHL defensemen who played 1000 minutes last year, only five of them started less in the offensive zone than Holl did. It wouldn’t really make any sense if a team known to be bad defensively demoted arguably their best defensive player.
Holl was also 38th out of 99 1000 minute defenseman in per-minute 5v5 scoring, despite a preposterously low personal shooting percentage. So he does have some offense to his game. A lot of people think Shea Theodore should haver won last year’s Norris Trophy and Holl scored two less 5v5 points than he did.
And the Playoffs? While Muzzin was injured? Holl was the Leafs best defenseman. An absolute beast. Corsi 56% and 56% expected goals.
So to sum up: the Leafs have a young, right handed, monster-sized defenseman, who scores at even strength and can play extremely hard shut-down minutes and still make his team come out on top.
This doesn’t sound like the kind of player a team would demote if that team was extremely dedicated to measuring player performance and applying what they learn to help them win hockey games.
You can fully expect Justin Holl to be in the Toronto Maple Leafs top four this season. He is the real deal, and together with Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin and T.J Brodie, he gives the Leafs one of the best top four groups in the NHL.