The 3 Biggest Toronto Maple Leafs Stories Heading into 2nd Half
The Toronto Maple Leafs have not technically played half of the NHL season (41 games) but the Christmas break represents a convenient time to assess what is going on.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have had a very up-and-down season.
On one hand, they've been beset with injuries. On the other, most of those injuries were to inconsequential players.
On one hand, they've played well below expectations, but on the other, the results are exceeding those expectations.
On one hand, their off-season moves (including the hiring of a new GM) look absolutely embrassassing, but on the other, their record is great so no one is noticing.
The Biggest Toronto Maple Leafs Stories Heading into 2nd Half
A lot of people are taking a glass-half-full approach with Max Domi, William Lagesson etc. but the reality is pretty concerning - but no one is noticing due to the record.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are only 4 points back of Boston, but with a game in hand, and about 50 games to go. All looks well.
Unless you dig down below the surface, then things are pretty concerning.
Today we are going to talk about the three biggest issues facing the Toronto Maple Leafs as they begin the second half of the season.
Sustainable Winning
The Toronto Maple Leafs lost four games in a row across late October and early November. They were on the verge of losing their fifth in a row when they went down 4-1 to Tampa in the first period of a game on November 6th.
At this point, Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi, John Klingberg and Ryan Reaves looked like somebodie's idea of a prank, and if the team lost their 5th in a row, it would have been intereresting to see what would have happened.
Would new GM Brad Treliving have panicked and fired Keefe? Its possible. Up to that point, it was looking like the last days of the Ron Wilson era.
Who knows what would have actually happened, but it might have been for the best if the Leafs lost that game. Instead, they went on to go pretty much unbeaten for the next month and a half, losing rarely in regulation, and taking almost every game to overtime.
While no one can argue that winning is usually a good thing, if you are in charge of deciding how to use the team's assets, and in charge of using those assets to build a better team, it is important to know if your team is actually good or not.
Winning doesn't necessarily tell you what you need to know, at least not in a pro league with a salary cap and full parity. Mathematically, winning isn't the best indication of future winning. The best indication of future winning is how you win.
Since hockey has nearly random results in one-goal games, it's important to win by multiple goals if you want to keep winning. A bad team could easily go on an 8-0 lucky run over a stretch of one-goal games. That team's GM could then decide that it's worth spending assets to try to win the Stanley Cup when in fact it's a much longer shot that he knows. ,
Famously this happened to Edmonton and Ottawa when they sneaked into the Stanley Cup Finals against everyone's better judgement back in the Dustin Penner/Daniel Alfredson days. It can set back a team for years and you don't wan the Leafs to fall victim to this problem.
The Leafs actual record is miles better than their expected goals ranking or their record in regulation games (two of the best indicators we have for future success). The Leafs are 9th by points percentage, but only 22nd by Expected Goals Percentage. This is very bad.
The worst team in the NHL has 7 regulation wins, the best has 22. The Toronto Maple Leafs have 10. That is horrible. And in a league where teams play for the extra point, not losing in regulation isn't as good as winning (which is a response to a bad point others have made).
Furthermore, the Leafs record when they are losing by multiple goals before the third period is ridiculous. At one point (after 25 games) they had a nearly .700 points percentage in games they were either losing by multiple goals or games in which they blew a multi-goal lead,
You do not need to be any kind of genius to realize that kind of record in those kinds of games will not last for long. The Toronto Maple Leafs currently have a great record, but they shouldn't have it. How it goes from here will be extremely interesting to watch.
Coaching
The state of the Toronto Maple Leafs coaching and management are extremely concerning for anyone paying attention.
First let's talk about the coach.
Keefe is getting results he has no business getting, and that comes with a tendency to be very impressed by what he's doing and give him credit for those results.
The problem is, however, that he's partly responsible for the team playing bad enough to lose on most nights. For example, the Leafs make a lot of comebacks after the other team gives up, and after both teams abandon their strategies due to there being a multi-goal lead. It's hard to credit for the team's success when a lot of that success is just because Matthews and Nylander can outscore the team's issues.
Other concerns I have: he doesn't play Robertson enough. In fact, he's been horrible his entire term in breaking young players into the lineup.
He makes bad lines. He doesn't have a lot of options when Domi can't defend and Kampf can't score, and those guys make up half his centres, but still, his lines leave a lot to be desired.
Keefe also hasn't adjusted so far this year. His team doesn't play anything like last year's team was capable. Specifically, he doesn't seem to have compensated for the overall terrible puck-moving abilities of his blue-line. Previously the Leafs were puck possession monsters, but now they aren't.
I also hate how he starts Kampf in overtime, how he kept playing Ryan Reaves, and how he often puts the fourth line out to kill all momentum after a goal.
If the Leafs had the record they deserve, and not the one they've fluked into, I believe they would already have changed coaches. I think they should change coaches anyway, but being proactive is not in the NHL GM's playbook.
The GM
GM Brad Treliving had a bad summer. He didn't have much time to prepare, and the Leafs ended up just signing a bunch of name-brand guys and calling it a day.
Despite their good record to date, that strategy is already looking pretty dumb. Bertuzzi is fine, but doesn't produce like a $5 million forward. Domi is actively bad, and both John Klingberg and Ryan Reaves were disasters whose injuries actually made the team better.
To make things worse, he's done nothing since then.
I spoke previously about being proactive, but Treliving is anything but.
A proactive GM would be aware of the team's current issues and react accordingly, regardless of the team's record.
Instead, Treliving just let his team sink or swim with Legesson, Timmins, Benoit and Lajoie.
While at least two of those guys have been good (Benoit, and Timmins) that is besides the point. The Leafs haven't given any ice time to Mikko Kopponen or Topi Niemela, which I think is also another huge mistake - you have to know what you have in these guys, and they're well over 20 years old.
And the Leafs were not able to reach out and add help when needed. Just because they put up a fraudulently decent record during this stretch doesn't exonerate Treliving from sitting on his hands.
Unless you think signing Matthews for half the available years and finding Noah Gregor excuses six months of mistakes and errors, I don't even know how you could give Treliving a passing grade for his job with the Leafs so far.
I would give him an F and consider it generous. Looking at Calgary + his first six months on the job, I have no confidence that he can turn this around. I fully expect him to trade for Jon Huberdeau at this point.
Next. 7 Problems Facing the Leafs. 7 Reasons Why the Leafs are in Trouble. dark
It will be interesting what the next 50 games bring the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I wouldn't be surprised if they go on an extended losing streak and miss the playoffs. That isn't likely to happen, because their core is so good, but so far their new GM has done a brutal job of augmenting that core.