Toronto Maple Leafs Special Team Stats Through 4 Games

The Toronto Maple Leafs are a polarizing team at the best of times, but after losing to the Montreal Canadiens last season, the pressure this year is incredible. 

After four games of the Toronto Maple Leafs new season, the team is 2-1-1, but the results don’t really tell us much.

In both games the Leafs lost, they faced goalies who had what was probably the best game of their career so far.   The power-play has looked great, but hasn’t scored as much as it deserved to. John Tavares looks great, but can’t buy a goal.

Last year the power-play famously went into the tank after being elite for nearly three years.  This means that special teams are under a microscope this seasons, so let’s take a look at the numbers so far.  (some stats naturalstattrick.com,  some from nhl.com) 

Toronto Maple Leafs Early Season Special Teams

Power Play:  Everyone talks about the Leafs power-play being broken because for 30-odd  games last year, it was absolute garbage, and it cost the Leafs the President’s Trophy and a date with Winnipeg in the second round.   They forget, however, that for the 152 games prior to that, it was one of the best in the NHL, ranking third overall in goals per minute, as well as expected goals per minute.

This season so far, the Leafs have three goals in four games, operating at 21% which is decent, and would be top 10 over a full season.   More impressively though, is how much puck movement and how many scoring chances those power plays have produced.  The Leafs lead the NHL currently in expected goals-for on the power-play.

They are second in shots per minute on the PP and 4th in scoring chances per minute.   An excellent start to the season that will no doubt lead to success over a larger sample size. Three goals in four games even though they’ve been goalied twice is very impressive.

They also played three our of the first four games without the NHL’s best goal scorer.

Penalty Kill:  The Toronto Maple Leafs have allowed 2 goals against in 13 opportunities, which is almost 85% and everything over 80% is really good.  Last year the Golden Knights had the best PK in the NHL with an 86% PK percentage.

The Leafs most used PK Players are Holl, Kampf, Rielly, Brodie, Marner, Muzzin and Kerfoot. They are all getting between 1:40 and 2:40 per game.  Less used, but still averaging 42 second per game has been William Nylander.

These guys have all been good, but really, the PK’s MVP has been Jack Campbell.

The Toronto Maple Leafs special teams combined percentage is 106 which is absolutely fantastic.  Anything over 100 is really good. If they keep rolling like this,