Trying to balance offence with defence
Top line has been twice as dangerous as their opponents in slot shots
The Maple Leafs’ top line — Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and, lately, Zach Hyman — is living up to expectations as one of the top offensive units in one of the NHL’s most explosive divisions.
The North Division, through Sunday’s games, had three of the league’s top four scorers, with Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and Toronto’s Mitch Marner, and nine of the top 18. McDavid and Vancouver’s Brock Boeser led the league with eight goals each. And the all-Canadian division’s seven teams had scored 215 goals, just three fewer than the East Division’s eight.
The challenge for Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe is to have his players match that type of firepower while being defensively responsible.
“I think there’s a balance there for sure,” Keefe said Monday. “(The Matthews line carries) a bit of an offensive burden, given the abilities they have, what they mean to the team. They know that they are relied upon to produce offence.
“At the same time, we’ve been very clear to them, and to our entire team, that we have to prioritize defence, and that we have to be better that way, and we look to generate off that, frustrating teams, getting pucks back, making teams vulnerable who are not ready to defend.”
There are four lines in the division — two on Edmonton (McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jesse Puljujarvi; and McDavid, Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Kassian) and two on Montreal (Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher and Tomas Tatar; and Josh Anderson, Jonathan Drouin and Nick Suzuki) — ranked higher than Toronto’s top line by Sportlogiq. The rankings combine expected goals for, combined time on ice per game, shots for and against, slot shots for and against, and goals for and against, all at even strength.
The Matthews line has played a combined 62 minutes and 53 seconds per game together, which is the lowest among the five lines. Montreal’s two lines are playing more than 70 minutes together. And while Matthews, Marner and Hyman have the lowest shots for and against differential (41-30), they lead the group with 24 slot shots and just 12 against.
That fact they have been essentially twice as dangerous as the top opposition lines they face reflects the kind of balance Keefe wants the line to build on.
“That can be an advantage for us,” Keefe said. “But it is a bit of an adjustment for them. Those guys are finding a way through it, and the commitment we’ve seen from Matthews and Marner, the difficult matchups they’ve had throughout … it’s been good to see.”
The Matthews line is still a minus-1 when all three players are on the ice at even strength, a contrast from the all-out offence it has produced as part of the Leafs’ third-ranked power play.
“I feel like we kind of have little dips and then we have moments when we’re really on it … we just want to stay consistent,” Matthews said after the Leafs’ overtime loss in Edmonton Saturday.