Chris Tanev off to a great start with the Toronto Maple Leafs

To be absolutely clear, the biggest problem with the Toronto Maple Leafs off-season was not that they signed an ancient, possibly soon-to-decline, potentially injury prone, defensive defenseman to a long and expensive contract.

The Chris Tanev signing was probably worth the risk and it could be the thing that puts the Toronto Maple Leafs over the top (though I doubt it).

The problem with the signing, and the biggest one the Leafs faced this summer was that that was their biggest acquisition. Tanev is a solid pick-up, he just shouldn't be the main feature of your off-season.

More than Tanev, the Leafs had need for a top goalie, a third-line centre, and an elite defenseman for the very top of their lineup. Again, Tanev is very good, but he's none of those things,

However, with that firmly established, let's dig into the numbers and see how he'd been doing over the first three games of his Toronto Maple Leafs career.

Chris Tanev off to a great start with the Toronto Maple Leafs

Tanev has zero points in his first three games, but this is not a player that you judge by point totals. Though, to be fair, he is not the offensive black-hole that most players with his reputation are. Tanev, as seen in his first game with the Leafs, is quite adept at breaking the puck out of the zone and transitioning from defense to offense. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).

Strangely, after three games, Tanev has played almost ten minutes less than Morgan Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and is the team's fourth most used 5v5 defenseman. Perhaps they just don't want to wear him down, but I would have thought he'd lead the team in ice-time and I suspect that when games matter, he will. To be sure, this is an anomaly most likely caused by the Leafs penchent for taking a large amount of minor penalties over their first three games.

So far, the Leafs have possessed the puck 54% of the time, which considering his hard usage, is very good. Not as good as the OEL/McCabe pairing, but also not starting in the o-zone as much as either one of those guys.

The Leafs are getting 64% of the shots, 60% of the scoring chances, and an incredible 84% of the high-danger chances that have occured while Tanev is on the ice. The dangerous chances have been 11-2 in the Leafs favor, which is why they have almost a 90% Xgoals rating when Tanev is on the ice and have scored 3 goals and allowed zero.

Tanev has been great, but Leafs have played one of the NHL's worst teams, a team that just got back from opening the season in Europse, and another non-playoff team, so we should take this utter domination with a grain of salt.

The Leafs as a team have only allowed 2 5v5 goals so far this year, and none have been scored when Rielly or Tanev is on the ice. You couldn't ask for a better start, and if this is the standard of what we can expect, than perhaps Tanev was a correct choice for "biggest move of the summer."

Either way, his first three games of the season are completely unimpeachable.