Toronto Maple Leafs 2021 Defenseman, Goalie, Management Grades

The Toronto Maple Leafs had one of the best seasons in franchise history this year.

Unfortunately, all of that was instantly forgotten when the Toronto Maple Leafs choked on a 3-1 series lead to the Montreal Canadiens and ended up losing.  To make matters worse, we had to watch as the Canadiens made it all the way to the Cup Finals.

Now in my humble opinion, there are two ways to look at this collapse:

You are very upset, hate the team and are using the loss to collect all your grievances into one nice and convenient package that includes complaints about the Leafs skill over grit approach, their salary cap strategy and their total disregard for the 200 Hockey Men Old Boys Club.

Or you realize that three of their five first-round losses were by a team chalked full of rookies, sophomores and third year players who were lucky just to make the playoffs in the first place. These were good seasons that were not marred by losing.

The last two seasons hurt, but realistically, one was a five game series after a six month layoff.  Only the loss to Montreal really matters, and even that is excusable because even without John Tavares, all the Leafs really needed to advance was for Matthews and Marner to play even 50% below their normal production, something that will almost always happen.

In my opinion, if you put the losses into their proper context, what you realize is that the Toronto Maple Leafs are a team that won their division, almost won the President’s Trophy, have three superstars about to embark on the primes of their careers, one of the best farm systems in the NHL and are the only team in the NHL without a bad contract on the books. (All stats for this article from naturalhattrick.com  all mentions of overall rankings and percentiles from @Jfresh and all salary cap info from capfriendly.com). 

So now that we are all feeling good about our favorite team, let’s check in on the grades for the past year. Note: This is for the regular season only.

Morgan Rielly

Morgan Rielly had a great year.  He led the Toronto Maple Leafs in 5v5 ice-time per game and scored 35 points in 55 games, which would be good for about 52 points in a normal season.

Overall, Rielly is probably the Leafs best defenseman when you consider age, impact and talent, though by strictly analytical methods other players may be ranked slightly higher this year.  Overall, Rielly was better than 79% of other NHL defenseman this past season, falling just shy of being an elite player.

Rielly’s power-play production was just average (72nd percentile) and the Leafs PP going ice-cold for half the season is the only thing that dropped him out of the elite percentile (anyone over 80%). I think it’s more than reasonable to consider the Leafs power-play problems an anomaly, given the personnel they can use.

The main problem overall for Rielly is a very bad 5v5 defense ranking.  However, the Leafs scored 12 goals more with Rielly on the ice than they allowed, meaning that his elite offense (better than 97% of NHL defenseman) more than made up for his bad defense.

At 27, Rielly is a bargain at $5 million for one more year, but his next contract has got to be reasonable in order for him to play his whole career in Toronto.

I think Rielly has a bit more to give than we saw this year –  there are times you see him make great defensive plays and wonder why he can’t do that a bit more often. His offense is among the best in the NHL at 5v5 for a defenseman, so if he can get even just slightly better on defense he would be a top ten defender again, like he was three seasons ago.  He was fantastic in the playoffs.

Overall, he led one of the NHL’s best teams in ice-time per game and fell just shy of being an elite player, so I give him a B+

T.J Brodie

Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas sure takes a lot of heat (mostly out of ignorance) about his salary cap strategy, but how bad could it really be a problem when he was able to sign the second best defenseman on the market last summer?

Brodie’s 1 goal and 14 points in 56 games probably doesn’t sound that great, but consider this: With Brodie on the ice, the Toronto Maple Leafs outscored the opposition 55-29 which is 65% and absolutely insane.  His expected goals was “only'” 55% (still great) but the actual results were off-the-charts.

Brodie’s 94th percentile ranking in even-strength defense is just shy of being the best in the NHL. He is an elite defender with decent 5v5 offense.  Paired with Rielly, they were among the best top pairings in the NHL and should continue to be a force going forward.

He doesn’t play on the power-play and he isn’t much of a penalty killer, but few players are as effective at even-strength. It was a brilliant signing, and a feather in Kyle Dubas’ cap.

Brodie was just a little offense shy of being one of the best 5v5 players in the NHL, and as it stands, he was, overall, better than 92% of NHL defenseman last year.  A great player, he is 31 and has three more years at a very reasonable $5 million cap hit.

It’s funny, when people complain about the Marner contract, they never consider that the Leafs have two players (Muzzin and Brodie) who get paid about half of what they’re worth.

Again, once you start thinking of the dirt cheap price the Leafs paid to get Jake Muzzin, and how cheap his contract is, and how, if he hadn’t been injured two playoff series in a row, the Toronto Maple Leafs almost certainly would have advanced both times, it’s hard to believe  how much heat Kyle Dubas is taking.

“Hey I will intentionally ignore how you made one of the best trades and subsequent signings in the last decade of NHL Hockey and complain about how you signed two of the best players in the world to contracts that keep in them in Toronto for their entire primes.” 

Sound like anyone you know? Jeez!

Muzzin is an elite defender who also makes Justin Holl into an elite defender.  He’s like two stars for the price of one. (Seriously, Muzzin alone, based on last year’s stats, is worth at least what the Leafs pay him and Holl combined).

5v5 offense? 90th percentile.

5v5 defense? 85th percentile.

Overall (includes special teams)? 93rd percentile.

Oh and he not only plays some of the toughest competition in the NHL, but he does it with Justin Holl (Holl is fine, but he’s not on this level).

Muzzin is a beast, and he’s dirt cheap for what he brings.  If he can stay healthy for an entire playoff series, the Leafs will stop losing them.

Travis Dermott

Keeping Holl and Dermott for just a late pick and a B prospect was a pretty suave move by Kyle Dubas, who could save children from burning buildings in his spare time and still not get the respect an Old School Hockey GM gets in this city.

Doesn’t matter.  Let’s talk about Travis Dermott – an extremely underrated NHL defenseman.  Dermott doesn’t score much and he plays on the third pairing so most people probably don’t realize just how effective he is.

Dermott’s 5v5 defense is better than 89% of other defenders.  That is incredible. Sure, it’s just on the 3rd pairing, but someone has to play those minutes and most people do not crush them like Dermott does.

He is still just 24 and the odds are he would be successful in the top four.   He is probably blocked from moving up the lineup, but that doesn’t matter because the Leafs have one of the NHL’s best 3rd line LDs in the NHL.

His contract is dirty cheap and he’s still got room to get better.

He was second on the Leafs blue line with a 56% expected goals rating, and his overall game was better than 80% of NHL defenseman, which would make him elite if he played top four minutes. As it is, he’s just one of the best 3rd pairing defenseman in the league.

Zach Bogosian

Bogosian came in and played effective third pairing minutes for the Toronto Maple Leafs this season.

The  JFresh model doesn’t like him at all, ranking him better than only 32% of NHL defenders, and crediting virtually all of the Leafs 3rd pairing success to Travis Dermott.

Now it should be pretty obvious to anyone that Dermott carried Bogosian, who is slow and makes lousy decisions about when to pinch (here is a hint: don’t ever do it. Especially not in the playoffs when Alex Galchenyuk is the guy backing you up).

But at the same time, he’s got a decent Corsi, and like everyone else on the Leafs blueline, he got about 55% of the goals and expected goals when he was on the ice.  Can’t really argue with results, and the results were good.

My main problem with Bogosian is that he was/is blocking Sandin and Liljegren.  If he’s back I won’t be too mad, and if he leaves I won’t be too mad.  You could do a lot worse for your  #6 but I would prefer someone with a higher ceiling.

The Rest

The Toronto Maple Leafs had a remarkably healthy regular season with their blueline, and barely used any of their depth players.

Rasmus Sandin led the way with just nine games.  The Leafs outscored the opposition 8-2 which is an outrageous 80% goals% but his 56% Xgoals% was right in line with the rest of the Leafs blueline.  He is obviously ready for top-four action A+

Mikko Lehtonen also played 9 games, and he wasn’t very good. Pandemic. Language. New System. Smaller Ice.  Can’t blame him, he didn’t get a chance, then got traded to Columbus. I hope the re-sign him.   D for his performance, but really, too much crazy stuff going on to properly critique his play.

Ben Hutton played just four games and he didn’t look good or bad. In fact, I barely noticed him. That’s a good sign for a depth player, and he’s almost certainly capable of being swapped out with Bogosian and playing the same role equally well.  Incomplete grade on the Leafs, but statistically, overall, he stinks.

Timothy Liljegren played just 2 games. In his two games, while he was on the ice, the Leafs got 68% of the shot-attempts, 70% of the shots, 100% of the goals, 73% expected goals, 70% of the scoring chances, 88% of the dangerous scoring chances and zero offensive zone starts. Can’t grade a guy on two games, but those were two great games.

Not to sure why everyone says “he’s not ready” because those are the best stats on the team. Sure, it’s only two games, but he definitely earned  a third.

Jack Campbell

Jack Campbell took a decade to do it, but he finally showed people why he was a first round NHL draft pick by being the NHL’s best goalie this past season.

Campbell went 17-3-2 for an absolutely insane points percentage of 82%.  When Campbell played, the Toronto Maple Leafs were far and away the NHL’s best team.  At least from a results standpoint.

Unfortunately, injuries conspired to limit him to just 22 out of 56 games.  Campbell won games ata 134 point pace and had a .921 save percentage.  He is clearly going to regress, because no one can win that many games over a full season,  but the hope is that he can still be a top shelf goalie.

For the purposes of grading him, whether he can do it again is irrelevant. The fact is that the only reason Jack Campbell wasn’t named the Vezina winner this season is because he didn’t play enough games to get serious consideration.

Freddie Andersen et. al.

Freddie Andersen played in 24 games and had a save percentage under .900 while losing his job to Jack Campbell.   He get’s an F.

Michael Hutchinson, a year after being possibly the single worst player in the NHL, rebounded with the Leafs, played eight games, won four of them, and got points in 5 of them.  He put up a .919 Save-Percentage and was generally pretty good.   His grade is A.

David Rittich does not earn a grade.

Kyle Dubas

Kyle Dubas was criticized for spending half his money on four elite players, but then he also built one of the best blue-lines in hockey with Brodie, Rielly, Muzzin and Holl absolutely crushing their minutes all season long.

By picking up a first round pick for Kasperi Kapanen, then drafting Rodian Amirov, then signing T.J Brodie, Joe Thornton and Wayne Simmonds he won last year’s off-season.

At the deadline he brought in Nick Foligno, but it’s hard to dock him on a widely praised move that didn’t work out due to injury.

Bottom line: The Leafs would have won the President’s Trophy if Auston Matthews’ wrist wasn’t injured leaving him unable to shoot the puck for about a month, or if Jack Campbell could have stayed healthier or if Freddie Andersen hadn’t been so inexplicably bad, or if the power-play didn’t suddenly become the worst in the league for no discernable reason.

Then in the playoffs, well what can you do? I hardly think it’s Dubas Fault that Tavares got kicked in the head.  I don’t blame him for the uncalled headshot that led to Montreal winning game six, despite blowing a two-goal lead and being outshot 12 -1 in OT.

I don’t blame Dubas for Auston Matthews scoring once instead of the expected six or seven times.  Can’t blame Dubas for Mitch Marner going cold.

In the end, Dubas was let down by his team, not the other way around.  From drafts, to signings, to trades, to players he previously acquired proving they were NHL stars, Dubas was the best GM in the NHL last years.  The fact his team got powerfully unlucky in a Mr Burns Softball Team style way is not his fault.