Toronto Maple Leafs 2021-22 Defenseman and Goalie Grades

As the Toronto Maple Leafs and the rest of the NHL get set for the beginning of training camp soon, it’s time to reflect on last year’s team.

The Toronto Maple Leafs may not have advanced in the playoffs last season, but it wasn’t the kind of failure seen in years past.

Last year’s version of the Leafs had the misfortune of coming up against the defending back-to-back champion Tampa Bay Lightning in the opening round of the playoffs.  Though they did not win, the Leafs played very well in the series.

The following player grades are based mostly on the regular season statistics, but playoff performance and individual perceptions have been used as well. Ultimately a grade is just an opinion, but we tried to base them in as much fact as we could.

A lot of times, a player’s overall grade can come down to the little things.

A player might of had a great season offensively but played poorly without the puck. The player might have played well in the first half of the season but not so good in the second half. These are a few extra things that get used while grading a player’s overall season performance.  (unless otherwise noted, all stats from Naturalstattrick.com).

We will not be grading players who played ten games or less for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Players not included are Nick Robertson, Alex Steeves, Carl Dahlstrom, Joey Anderson, Nick Abruzzese, Michael Amadio, Joseph Woll, Kristians Rubins, Alex Biega, Kirill Semyonov, Brett Seney, and Michael Hutchinson.

Grading the 2021-22 Toronto Maple Leafs Goaltenders

Goaltending was not kind to the Toronto Maple Leafs last season. The goaltending was great at times but miserable too often. The team still managed to win 54 games and earn 115 points, but the 5v5 save percentage was one of the lowest in the league.  With better goaltending, the Leafs could have challenged for first overall.

Jack Campbell

Jack Campbell finished the season with a 31-9-6 record.

As good as that record looks, it could have been better. Campbell struggled at times and allowed four or more goals 14 times. Toronto ended up losing ten of those 14 games. They lost four of those games in overtime, so with an extra save here or there, Campbell could have helped Toronto win even more games.

Campbell was ranked 68th in the NHL by goals saved above expected, saving almost three goals less than he should have. He ranked below Joseph Woll and Michael Hutchinson on this list, which is not good.  (moneypuck.com).

Among goalies who played a minimum of 2000 minutes, Campbell ranked 25th in high-danger save percentage.

While Jack Campbell was in the Vezina conversation for his stellar play in November and December, after January first, of the 40 goalies who played at least 900 minutes, Jack Campbell ranked last in 5v5 save percentage.

Last.

During Toronto’s first-round match-up against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Campbell was not good enough. He failed to make key saves when the team needed him to. I think a lot of Campbell’s mistakes come from the mental side of the game. When a game doesn’t go Toronto’s way, Campbell seems to get too low on himself. If a player is not focused mentally, mistakes are bound to happen.

He was the worst goalie in the NHL from January on and then failed to even post a .900 save percentage in the playoffs.  Overall the Toronto Maple Leafs finished 27th in 5v5 goaltending, and he was their starter.

Petr Mrazek

Petr Mrazek finished the season with a 12-6-0 record.

Frankly, given the narrative surrounding him, I was surprised the Toronto Maple Leafs did so good when he played.

Injuries derailed Mrazek’s season and contributed to his poor 3.34 goal against average. There is no getting around the fact that he was brought in to be a potential starter, and never even came close to competing for the job.

Jack Campbell won the starting job early, and by the time he was struggling with his own injuries, Mrazek was already down and the Leafs had to rely on the unknown Kallgren.

When healthy, Mrazek showed fans flashes of how good he can be. Unfortunately, those flashes were few and far between. Mrazek proved to be a capable backup, but nothing more.  The best you can say about him is that he was a solid pro and he didn’t complain about anything.

Toronto signed Mrazek hoping to get the goaltender that had a GAA under 3.00 and an SV% over .900 the three previous seasons. Unfortunately, that is not the version of Mrazek that Toronto got. Along with his 3.34 GAA, he also had a .888 SV%. Despite what players told the media, I don’t think the team trusted Mrazek when he was in the net.

He didn’t dress in the playoffs and they paid to get rid of him afterwards.

Feb 14, 2022; Seattle, Washington, USA; Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly (44) and defenseman TJ Brodie (78)   Arena. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

T.J. Brodie:

T.J. Brodie played in all 82 games last season and finished with four goals and 24 assists for 28 points.

Brodie is not on the team to provide offense, and those 28 points are a bonus.

Now 32 year old, Brodie plays a cerebral game that does not rely on quickness or physicality to be effective, and so he has not seen the drop off that many of his peers see at the same age.

Brodie posted a 53% expected goals rating, and other than Timothy Liljegren, allowed the least shots against per minute on the team.

Overall, Brodie was rated better than 97% of NHL defensemen in the defensive aspect of the game, and overall he was an elite, star-level player who was statistically better than 85% of NHL defenseman.   (JFresh)

Considering he played on a top team, on the top pairing (for the most part) this is very impressive.

Toronto has a reliable defenseman who can play a ton of minutes in Brodie. It is easy to see why they signed him for four years back in 2020. Head coach Sheldon Keefe can feel comfortable knowing what he’ll get from Brodie every night.

Mark Giordano

Mark Giordano was acquired by the Leafs last year at the trade deadline, and the former Norris Trophy winner re-signed this off-season for a mind-blowingly low price near the league minimum.  This team friendly deal is one of the luckiest things to ever happen to the Leafs and could possibly end up being one of the most valuable contracts in the NHL this season.

Giordano registered two goals and ten assists for 12 points in 20 games with the Maple Leafs last season, but it’s the on-ice numbers that are explosive: 55 % puck-possession, 58% of the shots, 61% of the goals, 61% Expected Goals, 58% scoring chances, 63% High-Danger Chances.

Those are Norris Level numbers, and the Leafs were getting that out of their third pairing!  Giordano clicked instantly with Timothy Liljegren (who was already posting elevated numbers but continued to do so) and the Leafs were playing with tilted ice whenever the two partners were on the ice.

Giordano was absolutely fantastic, and his elite on-ice numbers matchup well with a 50 point pace.

Justin Holl

Justin Holl finished the season with three goals and 20 assists for 23 points in 69 games. Those aren’t bad totals for a player who doesn’t get power-play time and isn’t expected to score.

He found himself out of position a lot last season. The penalty he took in Game 7 against the Lightning was a season-ending dagger to Leafs fans. John Tavares’ game-tying goal got disallowed due to Holl’s penalty, but realistically, that penalty should never have been called, and it is rarely called, and as such, Holl shouldn’t be blamed for it.

Holl plays a lot of minutes for Toronto, which is something they need. He offers up a decent amount of blocked shots and hits, but his takeaways/giveaways ratio is disastrous. Holl had 18 takeaways last season compared to 56 giveaways.

On the bright side, the Leafs won Holl’s minutes last year, getting 51% of the goals, which was apparently unlucky, because he was expected to win 54% of his minutes.

In the past, Muzzin got a lot of credit for the success of this partnership, but last year Holl actually did better than Muzzin when they were separated (Holl was a 52% player, Muzzin a 49% with anyone else).

Holl sometimes takes some heat as the least talented/famours member of their top-four, and it’s quite possible that he loses that role to Timothy Liljegren going forward, but he had a successful season last year.

He won his minutes while playing a top-four role on the 4th best team in the NHL and chipped in with some unexpected offense.

Timothy Liljegren:

Timothy Liljegren recorded five goals and 18 assists for 23 points in 61 games.  Considering he never played on the power-play, that is very good production.  On a per-minute basis, second best on the Leafs.

The young defenseman leaped forward in his development and proved he’s ready to be a regular NHL defenseman. Liljegren plays well at even strength but isn’t great at breakouts or one-on-one defense. His 43 giveaways were a bit high, but something he can improve on with more playing time.

Though the coach deserves credit for deploying Liljegren in a way that maximized his abilities, and though we must take the insane numbers with a grain of salt because he was on the third pairing, Timothy Liljegren posted some of the best numbers in the NHL last year, not just on the Leafs (where he was, statistically, their best defenseman).

56% Puck Possession, 58% of the goals, 55% of the shots, 58% of the scoring chances, 59 % of the high-danger chances, and 60% Expected Goals. He was better than 93% of NHL defenseman last year, and the Athletic , Evolving Wild and JFresh (the three most prominent advanced stats rating cards) all agree.

If you look at other third pairing players, they don’t post those kinds of numbers, so it’s not like this is a decent player with inflated stats because of easy minutes.  This is a player who is on his way to greatness coming off a breakout season.

Liljegren seemed to play better once he got paired with Giordano at the end of the season, but in truth, he was crushing his minutes all year.  Hockey is the only sport I know of where fans and analysts look for excuses to discount an unexpected breakout performance.

Not playing him in the playoffs may be the biggest mistake of Sheldon Keefe’s career.

Ilya Lyubushkin:

Ilya Lyubushkin recorded six points in 31 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs after being acquired in a trade with the Arizona Coyotes. He gave Toronto the physicality they were lacking.

As good as the hits were, that alone was not enough. Yes, Toronto needed his physical presence, but his need to be physical often took him out of the play and caused turnovers.

The playoffs were when Toronto needed him the most, and although he provided 28 hits in 7 games, it wasn’t enough.

The team’s possession numbers with him on the ice were not good. While he was on the ice during round one, Toronto only controlled the puck 42% of the time.

For reasons that remain inexplicable, the Toronto Maple Leafs made Morgan Rielly the most common partner of Lyubushkin, breaking up their 56% top pairing.  Predictably, this pairing did worse than Rielly/Brodie.

Why the Leafs thought this was a good idea, or why he dressed in the playoffs ahead of their best regular season defender are questions we’d rather not have the answer to.  He isn’t coming back, and that’s probably a good thing.

Jake Muzzin

Jake Muzzin missed 35 games last season due to injury.

When he was able to play, he looked rusty from time to time. He finished the season with three goals and 11 assists for 14 points. It was his lowest points total since the 2010-11 season.  Muzzin scored 0.9 points per 60 minutes, which was the lowest on the team, besides Lyubushkin, which is not saying much.

Muzzin’s offense declined to the point where he is scoring less than Justin Holl, who is his normal partner. Also, while Muzzin carried the pairing in the past, this year it was Holl who the better player when the two were separated.

Muzzin didn’t look as good as he used to defensively, and he was the only regular Leafs defenseman last year to lose his minutes, with the Leafs being outscored 43-35 when Muzzin was on the ice (47%).

Muzzin had a very good expected goals rating (54%) and a low on-ice save percentage (89%) which should at least suggest he was getting a bit unlucky.  As a counterpoint, however, both Liiljegren and Giordano overcame a similarly low save percentage to win their minutes.

He might not have had a good regular season, but  Muzzin redeemed himself somewhat in the playoffs. During the first-round series against the Lightning, Muzzin recorded three points in seven games, played 22 minutes per night, and posted a positive possession rating.   His playoff expected goals rating was, however, lower than his regular season rating.

Still, he gets props for the positive results, but with two concussions and 35 games missed, it’s unclear how much longer he can be counted on.

Morgan Rielly:

Morgan Rielly had a fantastic season recording ten goals and 58 assists for 68 points in 82 games, just four points off his career high.

Playing with Brodie on his right side allowed Rielly to play his style regularly. Knowing Brodie would be there to back him up allowed Rielly to be more effective offensively. The Toronto Maple Leafs have a ton of offense up front but need production from the back end too.

Who knows what they were thinking when they split up their top pairing, but it pretty much made everyone worse and was not a successful experiment.

That aside, Rielly had a strong year: 54% CF,  53  Shots-For, 55% Goals-For, 53%  xgoals-for,   55% scoring chances – for and 52% high-danger scoring chances-for.

Those are stellar numbers, and Rielly probably doesn’t get enough credit for how good he is.

Rielly recorded three goals and three assists for six points in the seven games against Tampa in round one. He also played very well defensively in that series. His stats show that he averaged over 22 minutes a game in the 2022 playoffs and only had one giveaway.

Rasmus Sandin:

Rasmus Sandin was on his way to becoming a top-four defenseman for the Toronto Maple Leafs until he got injured.

While Timothy Liljegren posted team-best stats across the board, his usual pre-Giordano partner, Rasmus Sandin, was not far behind him.

He did manage to have a decent season with five goals and 11 assists for 16 points in 51 games. The 22-year-old averaged 16:38 a game and played with a physical edge. He produced an unexpected 88 hits last season.

Sandin missed the last 20 games of the regular season with a knee injury. He was also unavailable for Toronto’s first two playoff games against Tampa. Although he was eligible to play in the remaining five playoff games, head coach Sheldon Keefe chose not to play him.

With Sandin on the ice, the Toronto Maple Leafs got 55% of the actual goals and were expected to get 57% of them. Regardless of being on the third pairing, those are great numbers that suggest a very good future for the young blueliner.

He’s just got to sign a contract first!

Stay tuned later this week for the Toronto Maple Leafs 2021-22 Forward Grades.