Elite? Depends on the numbers you use
Players are showing they can score dirty goals, which helps in playoffs
The Maple Leafs resembled an elite team when they entered their game in Edmonton Thursday night, leading the NHL with a 6-2-0 record.
Their puck possession and power play were among the league’s best. Auston Matthews was the leader in scoring chances per game (5.1). Mitch Marner was tied for the points lead (12). And the team was showing improved maturity on defence.
The biggest step they have taken is one-goal games: 4-0 through Wednesday after going 10-15 last season.
Still, the Leafs have not performed consistently enough defensively at even strength yet. Here’s a look at the club from both sides of the coin, with statistical help from Sportlogiq:
THE ELITE LEAFS
A large portion of Toronto’s success has come in front of the net. The Leafs’ 26 shot attempts per game from the slot, entering Thursday, were seventh in the NHL, and their 12 attempts per game from the inner slot were sixth. Wayne Simmonds’ goals in each of Toronto’s wins in Calgary were dirty goals, scored by being around the crease. They were averaging 3.5 rebound chances per game, first in the league. And the power play, with 10 goals, was third with a 41.7 per cent success rate.
They have been relatively quick starters. The Leafs had six first-period goals in their first eight games, 23 per cent of their overall total, and three of those goals came inside the first 10 minutes.
Toronto, despite its reputation, was generating only 6.5 scoring chances per game off the rush, 15th in the NHL, but was eighth on chances off the cycle (12.3 per game) and eighth off the forecheck (3.6). That is more of a playoff-style offence than the team has featured in recent seasons.
On defence, Toronto is showing a more structured game. The team had given up 10.5 cycle chances per game this season, 21st overall but an improvement from 2019-20, when it was last in the league. The Leafs were 13th in the league with 2.75 goals allowed per game, after giving up nine goals in their first two games. And they were limiting opponents’ possession in the Toronto zone to 6:02, 11th in the league.
THE NOT-YET-ELITE LEAFS
Toronto, for all its offensive firepower, has fallen off the league-leading possession rates it enjoyed in the first week or so of the season. A large part of that has been a greater focus on defence and puck tracking and backchecking by the forwards.
The Leafs entered Thursday eighth in offensive-zone puck possession, at 7:14 per game.
The Leafs, it appears, will never be a classic dump-and-chase team; they were 24th in total scoring chances coming off dump-ins. A little over 60 per cent of the team’s chances were created off controlled zone entries, ninth in the league.
This team is top-heavy. No surprise there. Nineteen of the Leafs’ 26 goals in the first eight games came from top-six forwards or defencemen, even after the contributions of Simmonds and Travis Boyd in Calgary. Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe has rotated several players — Boyd, Jason Spezza, Adam Brooks, Joey Anderson, and Pierre Engvall — in and out of the fourth line. The third line has also changed. Ilya Mikheyev has proven valuable on the penalty kill and in controlled zone entries and forechecking, but has yet to score.