Leafs' profound strengths are being nullified by debilitating weaknesses
The Toronto Maple Leafs have some impressive qualities, but each and every one is being cancelled out by an equally powerful negative characteristic.
If you look at their bottom-line results this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs appear to be an approximately average NHL team.
The Leafs have a record hovering around .500 (6-5-2) and a goal differential just shy of neutral (-3). At 5-on-5, they have a shot share of 50.80% but their opponents have generated slightly more attempts (50.20%). When it comes to special teams, they've scored exactly as many goals on the power play as they've allowed on the penalty kill (12).
Numbers like that paint the picture of a middle-of-the-road group, which is a disappointing outcome for a team that entered the season with lofty expectations. They are also slightly deceptive, because while the Maple Leafs are quantitatively mediocre, they are stylistically extreme.
There are a few components of this team that are exceptionally strong. Auston Matthews has been the most dangerous goal scorer in the NHL this season, and looks on track to return to his 60-goal form from 2021-22.
William Nylander has been a terror in his contract year, producing a point in every single game and leading the NHL in shots.
John Tavares and Mitch Marner have less notably improved on last year's performances, but that duo has 31 points in 13 games. That forward group is helping drive a power play that ranks fifth in the NHL (27.9%).
Outside of the top forwards, the Maple Leafs have received excellent play from their first defence pair of Morgan Rielly and T.J. Brodie. Toronto has outscored opponents 10-3 with those two on the ice at 5-on-5, winning the shot and expected goal battle.
Rielly has particularly stood out, skating three more minutes per night than he did last year — and looking sturdier defensively while making an impact on the offensive end.
The Maple Leafs have also gotten strong goaltending from Joseph Woll, whose save percentage still sits at .913 after a dismal outing on Wednesday.
A recent lineup shuffle that brought Matthew Knies to the top line and built a third unit with Max Domi at centre and Nick Robertson coming up from the AHL shows real promise. Timothy Liljegren seemed to be taking a noticeable step forward before he got hurt.
Maple Leafs fans reaching for positives can certainly find some, but each and every one has a corresponding reason for pessimism that has helped drag the team down.
As good as the team's marquee forwards have been, the rest of the group has not pulled its weight. The Matthews, Nylander, Marner, Tavares quartet has produced 30 goals (2.31 per game), but Toronto's other forwards have combined for 11.
Three of those are from Tyler Bertuzzi, who has all of his goals either on the power play or alongside Tavares and Nylander. One was a Calle Järnkrok winner he got teaming up with Nylander during a 3-on-3 overtime session. Another came via Knies on the first line.
Putting all that together, the Maple Leafs' bottom-six has scored six goals at 5-on-5. With output that unimpressive, the elite production Toronto gets from its top guys doesn't translate to an offence that's great overall. A team with four forwards that have combined for 68 points already should probably rank better than 12th in the NHL, but that's where the Maple Leafs are.
That idea extends to the power play, where once again the club's best offensive creators are putting the puck in at a solid clip. A fifth-ranked PP unit ought to be a significant driver of team success, but it's rendered irrelevant when that team's penalty kill ranks 26th in the NHL (71.4%).
Outside of Justin Holl, the Maple Leafs are returning the most important players from a group that ranked 12th in the league last season, but they can't seem to find their way.
Toronto is struggling with everything involved with keeping the puck out of its own net, regardless of the situation. As much as Woll has been a stabilizing force at times, Ilya Samsonov is in the midst of an absolutely brutal start to the season.
Those numbers negate any good Woll has done, giving the Maple Leafs an overall save percentage (.883) that ranks 24th in the NHL.
When it comes to play in front of the goaltenders, the story is similar. Rielly and Brodie have been solid, but injuries to Liljegren and Jake McCabe have thinned out the defence corps. While fill-ins William Lagesson and Simon Benoit have had their moments, Mark Giordano has been overexposed, and offseason addition John Klingberg has been a defensive disaster.
The Swede has been on the ice for approximately one-third of Toronto's even-strength minutes (33.8%), but he's been present for half its goals allowed (16) in those situations. Some of that can be chalked up to a rough on-ice save percentage (.852), but his defensive gaffes have been frequent. Only one player in the NHL — Chicago Blackhawks defenceman Seth Jones — has been on the ice for more high-danger chances against at even strength than Klingberg (60).
Toronto has also had difficulty finding forward combinations it can trust defensively beyond the Matthews group. The Tavares unit has solid underlying numbers but a negative goal differential, the third line has been a jumbled mess, and the team has been outscored 9-0 when Ryan Reaves — and whatever fourth unit is build around him — takes the ice.
Although there are plenty of limitations to plus-minus, it's worth noting that the minus-9 Reaves is carrying is the 13th-worst mark in the NHL despite the fact he ranks 543rd in the league in ice time. Every other player with a minus-6 or worse this season averages at least 12:36 per night — nearly twice the 7:06 Reaves gets.
The good news for the Maple Leafs is that they are more likely to see improvements in their weak spots than regression from their current strong points.
Matthews, Nylander and Co. will probably cool off to some degree, but they are still likely to score at an impressive clip. The power play might have quiet stretches, but it ranked second in the NHL over the previous two seasons (24.1%). There's proof of concept for what this team is good at.
On the other hand, some of the issues that have cropped up look more or less entrenched.
The easiest part of that equation will be getting better goaltending. The current tandem of Woll and Samsonov is hardly a best-in-class duo, but collectively they're better than they've shown. Samsonov came into the season with a .908 save percentage in 131 NHL games. He's not the guy the team has seen thus far, and even a modest bounce back from him would go a long way.
Defensive improvements should also come organically as the team's blue line gets healthier. McCabe wasn't off to a great start, but he has a solid track record, and Liljegren could be a top-four stabilizer when he returns. Even Conor Timmins could play a role in the weeks to come.
It's also unlikely that Holl was the secret sauce that made the Maple Leafs' penalty kill work in the past — and the fact the team has a 4-on-5 save percentage of .826 is making the situation look uglier than it is.
Wednesday was an example of the bad luck the PK unit has experienced, as the game-winning goal was a pass in front that went off Giordano's skate.
Just like how Kuby drew it up! 🚨#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/qoCnBh9m1f
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) November 9, 2023
Toronto has also had one of the most threatening penalty-killing units in the NHL, ranking third in 4-on-5 shots (19) and fifth in expected goals (1.41). If the Leafs are able to produce a couple of shorthanded goals along the way, that should improve the overall picture.
Depth scoring is another area where things are looking up for the Maple Leafs, as the Robertson-Domi-Järnkrok third line has a goal in each of the last two games, including this beauty on Wednesday.
Oh it’s all so filthy 🛸 pic.twitter.com/DaBpO6lYwh
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) November 9, 2023
That group isn't a proven solution, but it looks capable of providing a genuine offensive threat. The fourth line is dealing with a structural incompatibility between David Kämpf and Reaves, but the team called up Pontus Holmberg on Thursday, giving it the option to be more judicious with how it deploys its enforcer.
Just because things are fixable doesn't mean they will be fixed. The Maple Leafs have serious flaws that are dragging down some of the brilliant efforts they've received this season.
Some of the warts they've shown might dissipate, but it's unfair to assume they'll do so all at once — or that others won't emerge. Teams with top-end contributions as strong as the ones Toronto has gotten shouldn't be languishing in the middle of the standings, but that's precisely where this team will stay until it can start plugging some leaks.
