Canadiens get a consistent play-driving winger in Toffoli
MONTREAL — Of the Canadiens’ many off-season moves, there are solid bets like Jake Allen, a big gamble in Josh Anderson and a bit of a risky move in Joel Edmundson. They all have a good-tostrong chance of improving the team significantly, but of the major acquisitions by GM Marc Bergevin, only one is a virtual guarantee.
In signing Tyler Toffoli as an unrestricted free agent, the Canadiens added a player who has been a consistent play-driving winger his entire career and, barring injury, a consistent 20-plus goalscorer.
Toffoli, 28, is exiting the prime age for scoring forwards, but the four-year contract with a US$4.25million annual cap hit is a bargain for a player of his calibre. Toffoli was an important piece in the Los Angeles Kings’ 2014 Stanley Cup victory, but hit his prime as the team faded out of competitive relevance.
The Kings were built on a smothering and physical defensive style, piling up shots from all over and overwhelming opponents with the volume of shots. Shortly after the Kings won their second Cup in ’14, the NHL as a whole started a shift to valuing more high-quality plays and shooting from more dangerous areas. While the Kings remained a strong defensive team, they didn’t have the right group at forward to create high-end passing plays. And they didn’t get to the net much, either, with the exception of star Anze Kopitar’s linemates.
Despite that style of play, Toffoli has averaged about 23 goals per 82 games played in his career, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he maintains or improves upon that on a Canadiens team that plays a much more aggressive style in the offensive zone. The Canadiens, at even strength at least, move the puck more quickly and more east-west than the Kings do, and they get to better areas of the ice than the Kings or the Vancouver Canucks — his last team — do, as well.
Beyond individual goalscoring, Toffoli is also an incredible play-driver, which you can see clearly by looking at his on-ice differentials relative to his teammates during the last four seasons.
During a four-season stretch heading into unrestricted free agency, Toffoli has exhibited phenomenal control of play, pushing the puck in a positive direction by all shot-based metrics according to naturalstattrick.com. The one season where Toffoli saw his on-ice goal share drop below team average probably had a lot to do with his shooting percentage in 2018-19 dropping to 5.75 per cent, a career low and just over half of his career average.
A career average shooting percentage for Toffoli in 2018-19 would have netted him an extra 10 goals that year and pulled him into the positives in goal share. What’s incredible is that even with a career-low level of shooting luck, Toffoli was still less than two per cent below his teammates in goal share, and that was while playing only about 12 per cent of the season with Kopitar.
This is the story of Toffoli’s career thus far, he’s not particularly flashy from an offensive perspective — he doesn’t have blazing speed to blow apart teams’ defences — but he consistently scores like a fringe first-line winger. And while he’s on the ice, his teams are much better at even strength than while he’s off the ice, no matter his linemates.
Toffoli brings a positive impact at both ends of the ice, too, making smart plays with and without the puck to get his team in a position to win games. If there is any gripe about Toffoli, it’s one Canadiens fans may be all too familiar with.