Toronto Maple Leafs: The Addition of T.J Brodie Can’t Be Overrated

The Toronto Maple Leafs have one of the best blue-lines in the NHL.

It wasn’t long ago when you couldn’t say that without laughing. The Toronto Maple Leafs, in recent years, have brought us such atrocities as “Ron Hainsey on the top line in the playoffs,”  and “Ron Hainsey and Nikita Zaitsev as half of the top-four.”  Other misfires include Roman Polak, Cody Ceci (again, on the top pairing) and Igor Ozhiganov (over Justin Holl).

The Leafs defense has been so bad for so long that actual good players like Jake Gardiner and Tyson Barrie received the wrath of fans just for showing up and being a member of the defense. Didn’t even matter how good they played, they were unable to avoid the stink of failure.

But it’s not like that anymore.  Morgan Rielly, T.J Brodie, Jake Muzzin and Justin Holl make up one of the NHL’s best top-fours, and the bottom pairing has been solid as well, turning a former laughingstock into a team strength.

One of the main reasons for their success in turning around the Leafs Blue-Line is T.J Brodie who was signed away from the Calgary Flames this summer.

Toronto Maple Leafs and T.J Brodie

Brodie has just seven assists in 25 games this year. He doesn’t throw thunderous hits and isn’t known for his shot-blocking or physicality.  In fact, most of the time, he doesn’t’ even get noticed.

He is just a quietly effective player who makes the team better whenever he plays.

If you look at the stats, nothing really jumps out. Brodie has few points, and a negative shot-attempt differential.  He does, however, make it so that the Leafs get more scoring chances, and dangerous scoring chances when he’s on the ice than they allow.

The numbers are not great – but there is some discussion on whether the Leafs tendency to hold the puck is really showing up in the normal on-ice numbers.  What is great, and which there is no denying, are the results.  (Naturalstattrick.com).

The Leafs are expected to win when Brodie is on the ice (though he’s only fourth on the team’s blueline in expected goals) but the results have been insane: The Leafs are 68% of the total goals when Brodie is on the ice.

The Leafs are outscoring the opposition 23 to 11 when Brodie has played (5v5).  This is great, but keep in mind that there is no amount of defense that you can play which will keep your goalie saving 95% of the shots over any period of time.

So Brodie clearly isn’t this good, but the point is that he is outperforming his expected results by a mile and has been awesome to date.  He is by far the best partner Morgan Rielly has ever had, and the two seem to be getting stronger with time, after a brief but necessary adjustment period.

Brodie’s value can perhaps best be scene by looking at the dangerous scoring chances per hour that he allows, which is the lowest on the team, and seems to track with the eye-test which tells me that he is excellent at breaking up 2 on 1s.

Ten NHL defenseman have played 450 minutes this season so far, and Brodie ranks third among them in allowing the least amount of high-danger chances per hour.  Brodie tends to be an unheralded player, but he’s been a solid add for the Toronto Maple Leafs.