3 Toronto Maple Leafs Exceeding Expectations Early
By Joseph Zita
2. Travis Dermott – 24 years old – D
2020-21 stats – 8 GP – 0 G – 0 A – 0 PTS – 54.94 CF%
Travis Dermott, who signed a very cheap one-year contract extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs back in the off-season is looking to prove to people that he is worth a decent amount of money for his next contract. Although he hasn’t dressed for all ten of the Maple Leafs games, he has played in eight of them and has looked really good thus far given a small amount of ice-time.
Dermott has been paired alongside noted tough guy Zach Bogosian on the third pairing and they both have done a good job at limiting opponents to capitalize on chances and ultimately goals. Dermott currently ranks top five in three analytics categories on the Maple Leafs and they are a 54.94 CF%, 75.00 GF%, and a 52.15 xGF% which is all above 50 so that is a good sign, especially when you’re trying to fight to secure a spot in the lineup.
The pairing of Dermott and Bogosian has also been one of the better third pairings in the NHL with a minimum of 50 minutes played. As of February 1st, the pairing ranks 9th in the NHL with a 57.41 CF%, rank 21st with a 66.67 GF%, and lastly, they rank 41st with a 53.13 xGF%. Given only 58:07 minutes of ice-time together, they have been a pretty reliable pairing for the Toronto Maple Leafs so far.
Dermott has put up some pretty good advanced numbers through eight games but on the actual scoresheet, he has nothing to show as he has zero goals and zero assists which definitely sucks for the 24-year-old defensemen as like I said before, he’s trying to solidify a spot on this team’s top six.
The main reason why I think Dermott is still pointless in the early season is that his ice-time is way down low from seasons prior when he sometimes got looks in the Maple Leafs top four, but that was when they had a very inconsistent top four and sometimes needed a little juggling on the back end. His ice-time in his first three seasons were between 16:00 minutes and 17:19 minutes, this season he is all the way down to only averaging 11:19 minutes per night.
He doesn’t see any power-play time and he doesn’t see any penalty-kill time, so it’ll be pretty hard to see his minutes increase unless Keefe decides to shed some minutes off the top four and hand a little bit more to Dermott and Bogosian because they have done a pretty decent job so far when on the ice.