4 Areas the Toronto Maple Leafs Will Need to Improve
By Edward Eng
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.