Frederik Andersen feels good, really, better than good. The accumulation of the season, which falls disproportionately on his wide Danish shoulders as the season grinds through the winter into the spring … that hasn’t really started yet. And since he’s trying to reduce his workload this year, the busy early schedule makes the Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender feel right on pace.

He’s got a save percentage of .904. He’s not worried.

“I’ve been feeling great,” says Andersen. “I think I’ve had some great games, and played well (enough) to help win some points. And I mean, with save percentage, if you look at one game — the Tampa game — then people think my save percentage is so low for the year, I must have had a bad start. That’s when people fall into a trap of taking that at face value. And with all the different statistics, I don’t know if people get lazy. I think oftentimes a lot of fans, media and even players are like, this one number should (tell us everything), where that one number isn’t the whole story.

“Like passer rating. That’s not even how to rate quarterbacks, and I think passer rating is definitely better than save percentage, but that’s just where we’re at right now.”

Luckily, the Leafs have lots of numbers that reflect the deeply uneven team that has started this season. They are 24th in shots and goals against, and have a goal differential that is a fraction above Anaheim’s. The power play isn’t clicking, and neither is the penalty kill. The No. 1 defenceman has missed three straight practices, the No. 1 centre has a broken finger, the No. 1 winger has been bafflingly unproductive at five-on-five, and backup goaltender Michael Hutchinson keeps giving up four to five goals, after which people say: It’s not all his fault.

The underlying puck possession numbers are good, though slightly juiced by games against bad teams (including, right now, San Jose). And defenceman Travis Dermott is back, with winger Zach Hyman right behind.

But this Leafs team simply doesn’t seem inspired all the time, especially in their own end, and the defensive mistakes are piling up. They have a lot of new guys, and they’ve played that heavy schedule, sure. And one thing that has truly dropped off from Toronto last season is save percentage.

But as Andersen notes, if you remove the 7-3 strafing Tampa laid on this Leafs team — a high point in Tampa’s own vaguely unsatisfying hangover start — he’s at .921, and quite happy with how he has played. So if Andersen — who reviews his work after every game with clips from goaltending coach Steve Briere, and is bluntly honest with himself, including in a journal where he writes down his true thoughts after every game so he can let them go — feels great about how he has played, what does that tell you?

One, they’ve only played 13 games. And two, the defence — really, the way this team has often played, without a sense of coherent confidence, but mostly the defence — is an issue.

“We want our guys on offence, we want our guys to understand the game and know when and why and how (to be aggressive offensively),” says coach Mike Babcock. “But you can’t give away free goals … and sometimes when we get carried away, like we did the other night (in a 5-2 loss in Montreal), we pay for it. So there’s a fine line there.

“I think when you first get a group together and they haven’t been together and everyone’s not comfortable, you don’t maybe have the same kind of looseness and energy as you do when you’re built over time. So to me, that’s part of the process we’re in now.”

Andersen has called out this team’s shortcuts before; he is one of the few Leafs who truly has the gravitas and stature to do so. He isn’t quite there yet.

“There’s still work to be done, and I think it goes for everyone,” says Andersen. “No team is perfect, but it comes with experience, and … the swagger of having the skill to score is great, and you don’t want to lose that, either. You definitely want to have that belief that no matter what, you can come back in a game, but you don’t want to make a habit of it, either.

“So I think the true next step is getting used to starting on time, and almost — not humiliate, that’s not the right word — but almost be overpowering in your skill, where it’s not really about the other team, or what the score is: You know how good you can be, and that’s your standard. It’s not even about winning the game, it’s about being as good as you can. Let’s say our ceiling is this high, and sometimes we’ve won games without being up there. But the more we can do that, the better we’ll feel, and the more confidence we can have going forward.”

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So much of hockey is effort paired with justified confidence, true. And this team has the talent to get there. But John Tavares talked about that kind of eff-you hockey last season, too, and they never got there. They talked about slow starts last year, too, and about being too in love with their own skill to do all the little things, all the time. A lot of this feels familiar, and what feels unfamiliar is so many issues cropping up at once. This team is built to contend, in a town desperate for it. Pressure builds up.

Frederik Andersen feels great, though. It’s a start.