The Toronto Maple Leafs Need to Give Less Time to Legends
The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Winnipeg Jets Thursday night, getting back in the win column for the first time in a while.
Though the Toronto Maple Leafs had lost five in a row, they were the better team in the last four games, and just like their struggling power-play, it really is a much ado about nothing situation – short-term results are always going to be funny, especially in a game like hockey where the random acts of goalies will see the worst team in the league beat the best team almost four times out of ten.
But despite our overall positive views about the Leafs, are their things they could fix? Of course. No team is perfect, and the Leafs sure aren’t.
One thing the Leafs could do to improve is play their veteran “legends” a lot less. The only real problem the Leafs have is that because of the stature of some of their players (i.e respected legends like Joe Thornton and Jason Spezza, as well as highly respected vets Wayne Simmonds and Zach Bogosian) they aren’t able to dress their best lineup.
In what turned out to be a very unpopular opinion, earlier in the year, I questioned these signings because I thought (rightly, it would seem) that the Leafs would deploy their newly signed veterans based on their reputations and not their current abilities.
My concern was/is that NHL coaches (see Babcock/Marleau/Hainsey) have a tendency to overvalue the past work of legendary players at the expense of their current team.
This opinion was roundly mocked, but time has since shown it to be very prescient. Thornton and Simmonds are potentially hurting the team at this point more then they are helping it, but worst of all, they are blocking players with much higher ceilings from playing and contributing.
Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning
People talk a lot about how the Leafs have changed their philosophy, but I don’t think it’s true. Three years ago they traded for Jake Muzzin. Kyle Dubas’ first ever trade was for Zach Hyman. Last year the Leafs brought in Kyle Clifford. This year they brought in Wayne Simmonds. This seems to be very consistent – find checking players, but only if they can also play.
Last year they signed Jason Spezza. This year it was Thornton. I like all these moves, in a vacuum. But a roster with Thornton, Spezza, Simmonds and Bogosian has too many guys filling the same role. Not one of these guys is good enough to play if there name is Nic Petan (who brings the same value, possibly better as all of the above from a strictly on-ice hockey point of view).
The Leafs started the season by having Joe Thornton on the top line, which I thought was a terrible, terrible idea. I soon shut-up about it though, because for a while it was very effective.
I like Thornton and I like Simmonds. What I don’t like is the idea that leadership and experience somehow trump talent – which is an idea as baked into the fabric of hockey as wearing skates. I think this is something that is easy applied after the fact, and has almost no basis in reality.
For example, every contending team in NHL history has made similar adds to what Tampa did last year (i.e instead of making a splashy big-name trade, they brought in some depth, character types) but those teams weren’t coming off a big upset that people (erroneously) credited to not having a “playoff type roster.”
Now, when people talk about how the Lightning finally won the Cup it is always because they acquired some grinders and vets. This is a cheap, annoying, untrue narrative of what happened. Remember, hockey is a game where underdogs have a way-higher-than-than-they-should chance of beating great teams.
Tampa was, (adjusted for era) arguably the best regular season team ever in 2019. They subsequently lost to a garbage Columbus team. They didn’t deserve to. They weren’t shut-down, or incapable of playing “playoff hockey,” they just got out-goalied. Just the exact same as the Leafs last summer.
The next year Tampa added Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, and Zach Bogosian, and won the Cup without Steve Stamkos (injured). The narrative gets really stupid when you think about it, because there is no way they were better without Stamkos than when they lost to the Blue Jackets, but that doesn’t matter when the only thing people care about are “Lost to Columbus” and “Won Stanley Cup.”
Realistically, they had a better chance of winning the year they got bounced in the first round, but the narrative doesn’t care. So of course when the Leafs add Thornton, Simmonds, Bogosian and Foligno everyone thinks the same thing is happening.
It’s not. And if the Leafs win the cup this year it will be in spite of Wayne Simmonds and Joe Thornton, not because adding them was the magical solution to put them over the top.
Deploying the Legends
True to form, Sheldon Keefe has relied way too much on his aged legends. Joe Thornton, Wayne Simmonds and Zach Bogosian are nice guys, it’s cool to have them on the team, and they’re doing fine, but the problem is that they play at the expense of better players, and in situations they should not play.
If Joe Thornton was anyone else, he would be given a restraining order to stay 200 feet away from the Leafs power-play at all times.
If the Leafs had of given 100% of Bogosian’s ice time to Mikko Lehtenon they’d be a better team today. Bogosian to date has been better than only 50% of NHL defenseman. That is not very good. He the epitome of average, and he’s been somewhat reliable but Lehtenon brought an upside that he just doesn’t have. Same goes for Rasmus Sandin.
Travis Dermott, on the other hand, is an elite defensive player who is better at defense than 89% of NHL dmen. Overall, he’s better than 79% of NHL defenders.
Rasmus Sandin Needs to Never Sit Out Again pic.twitter.com/JVvU0m8zeY
— Editor in Leaf (@EditorinLeaf) April 23, 2021
Joe Thornton – his beard is gross, but he’s a cool guy who is hilarious in press conferences. He is valuable to the team because I am 100% certain that people like having him around. Still, he shouldn’t play nearly as much as he does. He’s only better than 40% of NHL forwards and that isn’t good enough to be on this team. (All references to player percentiles from @Jfresh Player Cards).
He gets the sixth most power-play ice-time per game……how is that working out? Poorly. Big Joe is ranked 11th on the team in PP scoring per minute and has just four assists total. Sheldon Keefe has to be better.
Wayne Simmonds….has actually been surprisingly effective this year, at 5v5 at least. Though he’s had much easier minutes, I don’t actually mind wherever they put him in the lineup, he’s a pretty good fourth liner at this point…..but he is garbage on the power-play, his former specialty.
Seventh on the team by average TOI, Simmonds has just 3 PP goals and is ranked 12th in points per minute, and he shouldn’t see another second of PP ice time going forward. Both players are fine, and they aren’t exactly hurting the team at 5v5, but the Leafs could ice better lineups without either player.
And I just want to make it clear here that I like all four of the players I’m talking about in this article (Spezza, Bogosian, Thornton, Simmonds) and that it’s cool that they are on the team. I just don’t think they should be regular players who play every night. It isn’t that they are bad, it’s that they lack the upside that more talented, less established players bring to the table.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a deep team with lots of options. What they should do is create a rotation of players and keep these old guys fresh. But their optimal lineup, with everyone healthy should not feature Simmonds, Thornton, Spezza or Bogosian all dressed at once. They should pick one player/assistant coach and let him play while the other three sit. Two at most.
Nick Robertson should play on the left side of Matthews and Marner. Alex Galchenyuk should stick with Nylander and Tavares, while the Leafs bottom six should feature two excellent defensive lines – one with Engvall, Hyman and Mikheyev, and another with Foligno, Nash and Kerfoot.
There is no reason that that couldn’t be the best bottom-six in the NHL. The Leafs could have two stifling defensive lines that can also score. This would give the Leafs a perfect mix of two scoring lines and two defending lines. They could play both bottom lines evenly, and not treat either as a traditional “fourth” line. Then, at certain times, you sit Gally and Robertson and move Hyman and Foligno up.
Another option would be to use Foligno and Hyman on the top two lines, then create an offensive fourth line out of Robertson-Spezza-Galchenyuk, while using Nash-Engvall-Mikheyev as the primary shut-down line.
Both options are good, and neither one includes Simmonds or Thornton. The Leafs added two elite defenders at the deadline for a reason, and so Nash and Foligno are going to necessitate taking two players out of the lineup.
I suspect those two players will ultimately be Pierre Engvall and Nick Robertson, but that is a mistake. Engvall is a much better player than he gets credit for, and taking him out of the lineup wipes out a lot of the gains made by adding Nash/Foligno. Robertson, has got that upside that I think you have to have…if he doesn’t cut it, it’s easy enough to replace him, but I like having that potential breakout player that you just don’t otherwise have.
dark. Next. The Leafs Top Ten Prospects
On Defense the situation couldn’t be more clear: Rasmus Sandin is closer to being a #1 than a #7 at this point, and has to play. Dermott is too good to sit. The bottom line is that Simmonds, Bogosian and Thornton need to have their minutes cut back, and maybe even exit the lineup all-together.