The Toronto Maple Leafs Blue-Line Is Not a Problem

The Toronto Maple Leafs, their fans and media came into the season with only two options.

Option one: The Toronto Maple Leafs start hot, and everyone says “hey who cares, show me the playoffs.”

Option two: The Leafs do not blow the doors off the league in the first two weeks of the season, everyone loses their mind, decides the teams stinks and writes it off before Halloween.

It’s been two weeks, and so far we’ve seen: calls for a panic trade due to the injury to Muzzin (even though they’d likely give him away if they could), we’ve seen a good player playing well and getting scapegoated due to bad percentages (Engvall) and we’ve seen calls to fire the potential best coach of the future for one of the best coaches of the past.

But the weirdest thing to me is the sudden return of an old favorite – the Leafs blue-line stinks.

Apparently.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Blue-Line Is Excellent

Eight games will really skew, magnify, and distort reality with the results that occur.

A small sample size always produces a few whacky things, and regardless of how often this happens, people always act like these things will constantly recur from now on.  They won’t.

The Leafs are 4-3-1, but their schedule has been easy and they should have a way better record.

That is indisputable.

But if you want to know whether the Leafs are going to contend or be a .500 team, it is useful to know a couple things. 1. David Kampf leads the team in 5v5 goals. 2. Matthews has 1 goal at 5v5 but arguably better numbers than last year otherwise.  and, this one:

Morgan Rielly and TJ Brodie are getting outscored 9-3 at 5v5 when they are the ice.  That is a goals-for percentage of 25%.  Their Expected Goals rating is 52% for Rielly and 54% for Brodie.

A lot of people like to make fun of Expected Results, but what do you think is going to be closer to the final numbers we see in April? Will the Leafs top pairing continue to let in three of every four goals while they are on the ice, or will results normalize until they are a winning their minutes?

The answer is obvious.

When the top pairing is getting killed, it’s easy to say “this team’s defense is bad.”  The thing is, however, there is no way they will continue to get hammered like this.

The Defense Is Not a Problem

In ten years I am yet to meet or hear from the person who can coherently explain to me how a player whose team has the puck more, and takes more shots, and gets more scoring chances when they play, can be a bad player.

Rielly and Brodie are both star-level players. They are massive benefits to their team.

Timothy Liljjegren and Rasmus Sandin posted some of the best numbers in the NHL last season. They were 90th percentile players, based on the results of how they were deployed.  They have a ton of upside, and are unlikely to hurt their team.

Liljegren should be back in a week or so, since he’s already playing for the Marlies. He was their best defenseman at 5v5 last year, by all statistical measures (except points, he was slightly behind Rielly in 5v5 points per 60 minutes of ice time).

His ascension to stardom is all but assured.

Mark Giordano, lost in all the consternation, hasn’t been on the ice for a goal against, and he’s putting up very strong numbers.  I was 100% wrong not to be excited when the Leafs traded for him.  I thought he was done.  He isn’t.

Justin Holl is Justin Holl. He’s been a top-four defenseman on one of the NHL’s best teams for several years now.  His play has not been too hot this year, but he’s big, right handed and cheap. He’s way better than what you normally get on the blue-line for $2 million, and he’s underrated.

I am a Holl fan, and I think he can definitely play better than he has, but of course, his spot is the one in the lineup you’d improve if you could.

When healthy, this team has nine NHL defenseman. 10 If you count Dahlstrom.

Victor Mete is an excellent pick up and a really valuable seventh defenseman – he’s cheap, can move the puck, won’t hurt you, has untapped upside.

Sure, the Toronto Maple Leafs could use their own version of Victor Hedman or Cale Makar.  So could 29 other teams.  What they have is fine, and it’s better than what most other teams have.