Toronto Maple Leafs: Chicago Trade Working Out Terribly So Far

The Toronto Maple Leafs trade with St. Louis has worked out pretty good so far despite an injury to Ryan O’Rielly.

The Toronto Maple Leafs got Ryan O’Reilly at such a discount that the trade is basically no-risk, but in addition to O’Reilly being good so far (when he’s played) Noel Acciari has been excellent

The same cannot be said about the trade with the Blackhawks.

Jake McCabe has struggled to fit in, while Sam Lafferty has been brutally bad.

Toronto Maple Leafs Trade With the Blackhawks Not Good So Far

It should go without saying that we are evaluating this trade on a very short sample, and that it realistically can take teams and players a long time to adjust to their new surroundings.(stats naturalstattrick.com).

Jake McCabe is one of the NHL’s top crease-clearing players, and has always been a good player on bad teams.  He may have been fairly bad so far, but that doesn’t mean he won’t improve.

Sam Lafferty on the other hand should probably not be one of the 12 skaters the Leafs use every night.  He may also get better, but he is surely running out of auditions considering the depth of the Leafs.

In six games Jake McCabe has been on the ice for one goal for and two against.  Considering the Leafs goalies have a 95% save-percentage when he is on the ice, he should probably be quite a bit worse here (since his play will have exactly no effect on a goalie’s save percentage. A defenseman’s job is to limit shots, he can’t do anything about the ones that happen).

Goals are the shortest sample and the least indicative of reality until you have a ton of games played, and while he’s kept shot-attempts, shots, and scoring chances mostly in the Leafs favor, he has so far bled dangerous chances, which has led to an Expected Goals Rating of 41%, which is really bad.

The Leafs have played 15 different defenseman this year and McCabe has been the second worst by Expected Goals.

The problem here is pretty obvious – he’s too slow to pair with TJ Brodie and they have been ineffective together. Furthermore, his second and third most common linemates are Matthews and Marner.  This is just horrible coaching, because the Leafs most potent offensive players shouldn’t be on the ice with their absolute worst puck movers.

Better coaching will help McCabe.

As for Lafferty, he has a 35% Corsi, and a 40% xGoals rating.  The team gets destroyed whenever he plays. His numbers are similar to Nick Aube-Kubal, who was waived earlier in the year.  Of all the players the Leafs have dressed this year, they are by far the worst performers.

Alex Steeves, Wayne Simmonds, Pontus Holmberg and Zach Aston-Reese should all play before Lafferty,  Additionally, so should Matt Knies and Bobby McMann.  At this point, Joey Anderson would have been a better option.

That said, it’s been six games.  Either or both players could end up great, and I’m not cheering against either of them.

However, the Toronto Maple Leafs were likely better with Rasmus Sandin and Pierre Engvall in the lineup.