Comparing An Old Toronto Maple Leafs Defenseman to a New One with Crazy Results

The Toronto Maple Leafs have brought in Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to joining Morgan Riely, Jake McCabe, Timothy Liljegren and, once assumes, Jani Hakanpaa.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have brought in three new players to join three incumbents + Simon Benoit who got into 65 games last year, and may not be replaced by Hakanpaa, after all.

The three new players are to replace TJ Brodie, whose decline from star to replacement player was a major blow to last year's roster; Benoit, who is better served as a seventh defender, Giordano who got into 46 games; as well as Lyubushkin, Edmundson and Klingberg, who were all disasters and will not be back.

Today I want to talk about one of the new guys and one of the guys who won't be back. You could probably guess who, but I'm going to hold back their identities until the end so that you can make an unbiased comparison. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).

Comparing An Old Toronto Maple Leafs Defenseman to a New One

Let's first check in with Player A:

Role: 3rd pairing, left-side defender on a competitor.

Scoring: At 5v5 17 Total points, 3 goals, 0.9 Points per 60 minutes of ice-time.

On-Ice 5v5 Stats:
Puck Possession: 56%; Shots-For: 56% Scoring Chances-For: 55% High-Danger Chances: 52% Expected Goals: 54%

Actual Goals-For: Goals were 49-40 for 55%

Salary $2.25 million one-year deal.

Now Let's Do Player B

Role: 3rd Pairing Left-Side Defenseman on a competitor.

Scoring: At 5v5 8 Total Points, 3 goals, 0.76 Points per 60 minutes of ice-time.

On-Ice 5v5 Stats:
Puck Possession: 55%; Shots-For: 56% Scoring Chances-For: 58% High-Danger Chances: 57% Expected Goals: 54%

Actual Goals-For: Goals were 32-25 for 56%

Salary $900 K one-year deal (cap info puckpedia.com) .

Conclusion

As you can see, Player A and Player B each played the exact same role on the exact same kind of team. Player A scores a tiny bit more, but Player B is superior at limiting dangerous chances. They were both on their team's PK but not the top guys.

The main difference being that Player A played 40 more games and also had PP time, but was paid 3 x more money.

The overall results for Player B were slightly better, but he didn't play the PP and was injured or scratched for half the season. Still, given the fact that he's 3 x cheaper, I think you'd pick player B every single time.

There statistics are extremely similar, despite Player A having a more secure role on his team and playing with a better *at least by reputation* partner.

So tell me then, why did the Toronto Maple Leafs give Player A, otherwise known as Oliver Ekman-Larsson a 56% raise and a three-year commitment. while refusing to re-sign Player B, otherwise known as Mark Giordano, who will likely retire?

I'll tell you why: bad management that overrates name-brand players and cares more about perception than reality.