Fun With Stats: The Best of the Toronto Maple Leafs at Christmas

The Toronto Maple Leafs are having a very fun season so far.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have points in 16 of their last 18 games after defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier this week.

The early going has seen the Leafs become the most injured team in the NHL, but defy the odds to post one of the best records in the league.

Not only did Mitch Marner set a franchise record 23 straight games with a point, but the team itself fell just short of the franchise record for consecutive games with a point.

Here then, are some more interesting numbers about the team so far, not including last night’s games:

Toronto Maple Leafs and Fun with Statistics

Auston Matthews has just 17 goals so far.  That is good for only second on the  team to William Nylander’s 19.

Matthews has just one multi-goal game this year.  He had 14 of them last year, and is due to go on another epic run anytime.

Matthews 38 total points may seem a long way off McDavid’s league-leading 64, but Matthews actually has 2 more points than McDavid in the much, much more important 5v5 play.  In fact, Matthews is just 4 points out of 1st place for 5v5 points.  (except where indicated, all stats naturalstattrick.com).

272 players in the NHL Have played 400 minutes of 5v5 ice time so far.

Here are your leaders:

NHL Leader Corsi:   Jesper Bratt 64%  

Best Leaf Corsi : Marner 54%

NHL Leader Shots-For %: Bratt 64%

Leafs Leader Shots-For %: Mark Giordano 55%

NHL Leader Goals For %: Matt Gryzlek 76%

Leafs Leader Goals For %: William Nylander (3rd) 70%

NHL Leader Scoring Chances For %: Tomas Tatar 65%

Leafs Leader Scoring Chances For %: Tie 18th – Sandin/Marner 60%

NHL Leader Expected Goals For %:  Jesper Bratt 66%

Leafs Leader Expected Goals For %:  Auston Matthews 59%

As you can see, New Jersey and Boston players dominate the top of the on-ice stats.  The Leafs have some players with nice numbers, but they’re really getting it done this year as more of a team, seeing much less of a concentration of production than in years past.

Looking at some team stats: Boston has the best combined special teams in the NHL, while the Toronto Maple Leafs are ranked 7th.

The Leafs score on 1 of every 4 power plays, which is excellent, but somehow only ranked 8th.  The Penalty Killing is league average, coming at 15th.

It’s pretty amazing to think where the Leafs could be with better special  teams, a healthier roster and some multi-goal games from Auston Matthews.

Of course, when those things start to happen, the Leafs likely will have to deal with worse goaltending, as their current 4th ranked 93.74 5v5 Save Percentage is not sustainable.

It will be interesting to track these numbers going forward. This has been Fun With Statistics.