4 Areas the Toronto Maple Leafs Will Need to Improve

Last season, the Toronto Maple Leafs compiled an impressive total of 111 points, finishing second in the Atlantic Division behind the Boston Bruins and fourth overall in the entire league.

The Toronto Maple Leafs success was fueled by their potent offence, solid defense, along with some strong play in net.

Not only that, but the Leafs also found themselves in the upper echelon in the league with regards to their special teams, as their power play ranked second overall only behind the formidable Edmonton Oilers team.

At the same time, their penalty killing was quite respectable as well, ranking 12th in the NHL.

Most importantly, they finally got over the hump in winning their first playoff round in almost two decades by beating their long-time nemesis Tampa Bay Lightning.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t advance any further as they were eventually stopped by the tough, grinding Florida Panthers team in the following round.

Despite their somewhat successful 2022-23 season, there were actually a few surprising areas in their game that wasn’t so stellar, and will definitely need improvement if they intend to be perennial contenders for the Stanley Cup.

Here, we take a look at four particular aspects of the game that if the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t make the necessary adjustments, it could prove to be detrimental to the team’s success going forward.

2. Hits Taken

In general, when it comes to the hits category for hockey stats, one would look at how many a team delivered to their opponents.

But for the Leafs sake, the critical statistic instead is the amount of hits taken by their players over the course of the season.

In 2022-23, believe it or not, the Leafs led the league in the amount of hits their players absorbed with a grand total of 2537.

To put that into perspective, that’s comes out to about 30 punishing hits per game!

The Leafs cannot continue to allow their opposition to take liberties on their skilled players by allowing pulverizing hits game in and game out.

Over the course of a full season, such punishment would eventually wear down the players both physically and mentally.

It also increases the chances of them getting hurt with minor ailments that could end up lingering over a period of time, thus decreasing their effectiveness and play as a result.

Therefore, it is crucial for the Leafs to start minimizing the amount of hits on the receiving end this year.

Hopefully, with the key additions of tough, gritty players like Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi, and of course Ryan Reaves, it will help reduce those numbers accordingly, as their opponents will fear that it could be coming right back at them.

3. % Rebounds Converted to Goals by Opposition

One of the more surprising statistics that probably most people didn’t know about was the fact that the Leafs were the league leaders (or dead last depending on how you see it) when it came to the percentage of rebounds being converted into goals by their opposition at 16.82% last season.

Just to put things into perspective, strong defensive teams like the Carolina Hurricanes and the Tampa Bay Lightning were down around 10-11%.

Both of the Leafs goalies Ilya Samsonov and Joseph Woll tend not to give up a lot of rebounds from their style of play.

This was true even last year with Matt Murray also in the fold.

However, their opponents were still converting them into goals at a higher rate than the rest of the league, even though rebounds weren’t occurring often.

What that meant was that the Leafs defense were not successful in clearing rebounds effectively when it did occur.

As a result, the Leafs should be more conscientious this season in working together as a group to help the goaltender clear rebounds out of harm’s way whenever possible, or at least hinder the shooter from getting off a good shot from the rebound.

Otherwise, by giving the opposing team second and third chances at the net, the probability of it staying out becomes a lot lower in the end.

The Toronto Maple Leafs lack physicality on their blue-line and this could continue to be a problem this year.

4. PIMs/Penalties Drawn from Opponents

Finally, the Toronto Maple Leafs were ranked near the bottom of the league when it comes to penalty minutes drawn from the opposition.

In 2022-23, they ranked 24th in the league with only 622 PIMs taken by their opponents. In addition, the 246 total power play opportunities they received put them in the bottom half of the league.

With the speed and prolific scoring abilities of the Leafs players, it is actually quite surprising that they hadn’t drawn more penalties than they have been.

In addition, their team leader in drawing penalties from the opposing team from last year was Michael Bunting, who is now no longer with the team.

This has created an even bigger void for the team as it could ultimately affect the number of power plays the Leafs would end up getting.

With a power play that ranked second in the entire league last season, it would all mean nothing if they start losing more opportunities to play with the man advantage.

Consequently, it will be important for the Leafs to play more aggressively this year and drive the net in order to draw more penalties from their opposition.

This is analogous to that of basketball of a player driving to the hoop to draw a foul so that they can get to the free throw line.

That way, the Leafs can then take full advantage by throwing out their lethal power play on their opponent as much as possible as a result.

(All stats from NHL.com and Moneypuck.com). Overall, if the Leafs can address these four particular aspects of their game this season, they may end up finding themselves be even more successful and effective than before. Perhaps even enough to propel them further in their quest for the Stanley Cup.