Whether you consider 20 or 21 games to be the official 1st quarter mark of the NHL season, the Toronto Maple Leafs are now officially into the second quarter of the season. The first quarter, which has been plagued with injuries and had the challenge of adapting to a new head coach was met with a 13-6-2 record, and a .667 points percentage, Toronto’s best start in the past three seasons.
There’s no risk of parades prematurely being played, but there is plenty of reason for optimism at this point. The numbers below highlight the excitement about the Leafs but also highlight some areas to focus on as the regular season grind takes hold.
1. A true top pairing
Maybe the lesson that the Leafs needed to learn was to stop trying to make the Morgan Rielly pairing happen. Rielly is an incredibly talented offensive defenceman but there were always going to be issues with his defensive zone warts when he is utilized against top competition.
Craig Berube has found his way around that by leaning into Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev as his top guys.
Defensive pairings with the lowest expected goals against (minimum of 150 minutes played together 5 on 5) https://t.co/3qd1ufVXHS pic.twitter.com/mhim8urTCz
— MoneyPuck.com (@MoneyPuckdotcom) November 23, 2024
Yes. That’s a Leafs pairing at the top of the list for lowest expected goals against per 60. The Leafs have recognized what they needed and that is an elite shutdown pairing and while they aren’t getting much in the way of offence when the McCabe and Tanev duo is on the ice, the puck is staying away from the Leafs goal. This obviously has benefits in the regular season but even more so, this will be a difference-maker for Toronto come playoff time.
As an added bonus the Rielly and Ekman-Larsson pairing seems to have found some success too, albeit certainly not having as much offensive success as you’d expect that duo to have.
In general, the Leafs are not giving up much 5v5, although it is coming at the cost of creating less 5v5 as well.
2. The tale of two powerplays
The Leafs presently have the 17th-best powerplay in the league at a 19.7% success rate. It doesn’t get much more middle-of-the-road than that. In reality, the Leafs’ powerplay has been anything but middle-of-the-road.
The first 13 games of the season, the ones played with Auston Matthews, had the Leafs’ powerplay at a 10% success rate, which was the second-worst in the league. That number gets even worse if you look one game earlier and the Leafs were at a 7.9% success rate through 12 games, and that put them worst in the league. The Leafs also didn’t pick up a powerplay goal in their first three games of the season.
Fast forward to Auston Matthews’ injury, and since that time, the Leafs’ powerplay has been at a 32.3% success rate since November 4th, and the Leafs have had the second-best powerplay in the league over that time.
No one is blaming Auston Matthews for the initial failure, but the number of set plays that called for getting the puck to him probably is. There is a lot more movement on the Leafs’ powerplay, while Marner shooting more and Nylander creating chaos through his zone entries are a couple of the success stories. It will be interesting to see how the Leafs find the right balance on their top unit which has also benefited from Matthew Knies as a downlow presence.
3. Secondary scoring concerns
The Maple Leafs’ top-five scoring forwards have accounted for 95 points in 95 games played. (Marner, Nylander, Tavares, Knies, and Matthews.)
So far Max Domi, Ryan Reaves, Steven Lorentz, David Kampf, Pontus Holmberg, and Nick Robertson have combined for 18 points in 111 games.
While the bottom six isn’t meant to be close to the top six in scoring and someone like Steven Lorentz having three goals is actually a success story, there are some worrisome trends in secondary scoring especially since Domi should absolutely be producing offence, Nick Robertson offers little beyond goal scoring, and Pontus Holmberg was expected to be more versatile. The Leafs need to find better secondary options.
This isn’t meant to be Bobby McMann or Max Pacioretty erasure, as a healthy Leafs lineup would include at least one of them playing in the bottom six as well and there are some encouraging signs shown from Fraser Minten, Nikita Grebenkin, and Alex Nylander as potential solutions, but there is a need to get the bottom six’s house in order.
Ryan Reaves might be a luxury the lineup card can no longer afford, and players like Kampf, Dewar, Holmberg, and Robertson all need their job security called into question and need to deliver to stay in the lineup.
4. No danger from high danger
The Toronto real estate market is competitive and what the Leafs are doing on the ice mirrors that. The most valuable parts of the ice are now harder for visitors to get their feet in and the Leafs are enjoying the third-lowest HDCA/60 (high-danger changes against per 60) in the NHL with an 8.82 HDCA/60 at 5v5 and the second-best HDGA/60 in the league at 0.8 HDGA/60.
To top it off, the Leafs have had encouraging differentials and getting the opportunities at the other end of the ice giving them a 55.56 HDCF% (3rd best in the league) and a 65.79 HDGF% (2nd best in the league.)
A lot of this ties back to the success of the McCabe-Tanev pairing and a general shift towards low-event hockey, but the Leafs doing their goaltenders a favour is a nice change.
5. Jennings calibre goaltending
As bizarre as it seems the Leafs are very much in the Jennings race. As much as goals-against average (GAA) isn’t an ideal stat, the Leafs’ goaltenders are putting on a show in that regard as the team has the 4th best GAA in the league and individually Woll has a 2.00 GAA and Stolarz has a 2.18 GAA.
That being said, GAA isn’t much of a goaltending stat so here’s the real number to be excited about:
Anthony Stolarz has saved 5.7 goals above expected and Joseph Woll has saved 2.6 goals above expected.
Additionally, there is this:
6. Auston Matthews wasn’t at his best
As Auston Matthews recently mentioned that his injury has been hindering him since training camp and presumably it could attribute to part of the decline in his results this season. Granted, repeating a 69-goal season is a tall order, but his numbers projected out over a 82 game season would represent a decline over even the average version of Auston Matthews or his previous career lows.
| G | A | P | SH% | |
| Current Season (13 GP) | 5 | 6 | 11 | 8.9% |
| Current Season (over 82 GP) | 32 | 38 | 70 | 8.9% |
| Career 82 game average | 53 | 41 | 94 | 16.0% |
| Career worst (over 82 GP) | 40 | 29 | 69 | 12.2% |
The assists are on target, but the big thing here is Auston Matthews’ shooting percentage being just over half of what he typically shoots during his career. If his injury has hampered his ability to shoot effectively, a healed and rehabilitated Matthews might produce some very different results in his return.
7. The Maple Leafs are protecting leads
One of the worst narratives to carry around is that you are a team that blows leads. To the credit of the Maple Leafs they’ve become one of the best teams in the league at locking it down in the third period.
The Leafs have allowed just 15 3rd period goals so far this season, the third best number in the NHL behind the Capitals and Rangers who are tied at 13 goals allowed. In contrast, on the other end of the spectrum Kyle Dubas’ Pittsburgh Penguins have allowed 32 third period goals this season.
Toronto hasn’t been a big producer in the third either though. Only 18 goals have been scored by the Leafs, but some of this can be attributed to score effects and a +3 differential coming in the 3rd isn’t bad, but the +8 differential of the second period is the club’s strength. The Leafs are just +1 in the first, their lowest scoring period.
8. Mitch Marner’s contract year performance
Aside from Sheldon Keefe and Kyle Dubas, no one has had to wear Toronto’s lack of playoff success more than Mitch Marner. His lack of results in the post season is certainly concerning, but the extent in which things have been put on him are arguably excessive.
After a tough few months that included trade and contract speculation that was equally hostile there were a lot of questions about what kind of season Marner would have. The answer seems to be a big one. He has 28 points in 21 games, which would put him on pace for over 30 goals, but also a 109 point pace which would see him hit a triple digit point total for the first time in his career.
The fact that most of Marner’s success has come away from Auston Matthews is encouraging as dependency on Auston was part of the Mitch narrative, and the Leafs being able to potentially spread around their offensive talent more in the post season is a great option to have.
The Maple Leafs have money to spend in free agency this summer so if Marner continues to play like this his contract will also be a lot more palatable, but of course with Marner, like most things Leafs, there is a desire to see what happens in the playoffs before getting too excited.
9. The rise of Knies
There has certainly been a sense of longing for the Leafs to carry some proper power forwards in their lineup and harken back to the days of Pat Quinn where the Leafs had a balance of skill and toughness in their top six. While Matthew Knies might lack the craziness of a Darcy Tucker or the pugnacity of a Wendel Clark, there is very much a Gary Roberts quality to Matthew Knies and it shows in his numbers.
Knies is presently 13th in the league in individual high danger corsi at 24 shot attempts 5v5. Combine that his eight 5v5 rebound attempts, and his 41 hits to 23 taken at 5v5, and it is clear that he is a player who defines himself in the toughest parts of the ice.
Before his injury, Knies was on pace to exceed 30 goals this season and that will earn him a nice little raise on his next contract.
The success of Knies combined with strong performances from Bobby McMann and Max Pacioretty, and the potential emergence of Nikita Grebenkin yet to come this year, and it seems like Pat Quinn hockey is back.
10. There is still offence yet to come…
Looking at the NHL Edge team stats for the Leafs the roll up of numbers show a lot of their typical areas of strength are where they’ve struggled the most. Goals are down, shooting percentage is down, and if you dive a bit deeper you’ll see that their powerplay offensive zone time, and high danger shooting percentage are also down. These are very manageable areas of improvement for the Leafs, especially with the imminent return of Auston Matthews, and healthy returns of Max Domi and Max Pacioretty also potentially aided in offensive output somewhere down the line.
The top shot speed, and generally all things shot speed continues to be on the low side for the Maple Leafs and while messing with what the Leafs have going on defence this year seems ill-advised, one of the areas, even as a depth option that might be worth pursuing is finding that player who can bring the heavy point shot.
It seems like an enviable position for the Maple Leafs that they find themselves at the top of their division while still having a number of areas that reasonable improvement of the team can be expected in without requiring personnel changes beyond promotions/demotions from the Marlies and activations from the injured reserve.
As long as the goaltending holds, the Leafs look like an improved team in 2024-25.
Data from Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, and MoneyPuck.
