3 Takeaways from the Toronto Maple Leafs First 5 Games
By Joseph Zita
We are over one week into the Toronto Maple Leafs 2021 season and there are some good takeaways from the team through five games so far.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are now over a week into the regular season after playing their first five games of 2021 and they have looked mostly good thus far through five contests.
Out of the other six Canadian teams in the division, we have seen the Maple Leafs face off against four of the six clubs: the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Winnipeg Jets, and Edmonton Oilers.
Through five games the Maple Leafs have looked like an improved team from last year, although given some flashbacks of typical Toronto Maple Leafs hockey that we are so accustomed to seeing, they have had flashes of brilliance and have looked good overall.
3. Special Teams
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been known for their deadly power-play units over the last couple of seasons and they are reminding everyone this season that they haven’t fallen off. With a strong power-play unit comes the hope of having just a strong penalty kill as well, and so far that’s what the Leafs have.
Through five games this season the Leafs power-play is scoring at 38% and their penalty kill is succeeding at a rate of 80.0%. Although it is only five games and it is a super small sample size, it’s all good so far.
For the power-play, we see a different look to it this year compared to years prior, in the sense that both units are split up evenly instead of loading up the first unit and letting the big boys ride out the power-play for the majority of the man advantage. The first unit sees Matthews-Marner-Thornton-Simmonds-Rielly on it, and the second unit sees Tavares-Nylander-Hyman-Spezza-Brodie or Lehtonen depending if Lehtonen is on the lineup or not.
Their penalty kill on the other hand may be in the middle of the pack, but starting the season at 80.0% is still good. The main penalty killers for the team are Marner, Hyman, Mikheyv, Kerfoot for the forwards, and Keefe also throwing Matthews out there from time to time.
For the defense, you have Muzzin, Holl, Brodie, and Bogosian as well, and they all bring defensive awareness and or physicality to the penalty kill. (Stats from NHL.com)