Toronto Maple Leafs: Jake McCabe Proving to Be an Excellent Acquisition
By James Tanner
The Toronto Maple Leafs made too many changes at the trade deadline, turning over a way-too-large percentage of their roster, though most of it was meaningless depth players.
The two significant additions made by the Toronto Maple Leafs were Ryan O’Reilly and Jake McCabe.
O’Reilly has been injured and missed all but eight games, and outside of his four point performance, has just one point in the other seven games. Still, he will be a great help to the team.
Jake McCabe’s first several games were pretty bad, but how has he done since?
Toronto Maple Leafs and Jake McCabe
In his first six games, McCabe had a 35% Corsi (puck possession rating) and a 45% Expected Goals rating. Those numbers stink, but it was a short-sample size of a player changing teams in the middle of the year.
Since then, McCabe has settled in and now appears to be one of the Leafs best defensemen, if not their very best one.
He now has a 52.5 % Corsi.
The Leafs have gotten 54% of the shots when he is on the ice.
They are outscoring their opponents 12-6 (66%).
They are getting 56% of the scoring chances, and 56% of the dangerous scoring chances.
He is listed as having a 51% Expected Goals, which is low based on the rest of the numbers, but perhaps that is because his numbers in Chicago and his first six games in Toronto were so bad, I’m not really sure.
What I am sure about is that McCabe has been excellent since those first six games.
He doesn’t score much, but he does have one goal and two assists.
McCabe averages almost 2 minutes of PK ice-time per night in addition to being the 2nd most used defenseman on the Leafs since he joined the team (5v5 and all stats from naturalstattrick.com).
His most common partner has been T.J Brodie, but this isn’t a good match. Both players lack speed and high-end offense (though both are good puck-movers).
The Leafs would be better suited to pair McCabe with his second most common partner since joining their team – Timothy Liljegren.
This is mostly because in order to be at his best, Morgan Rielly needs to play with T.J Brodie, and Rielly is still the Leafs most important defender.
With a Reilly/Brodie – McCabe/Liljegren top four, the Leafs have one of the best top-fours in the NHL. In addition, the combo of Giordano/Holl would be one of the best 3rd pairings in all of the NHL.
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Whatever they decide, Jake McCabe is proving to be an excellent pick-up.