With last night’s overtime loss in Florida, the Leafs are now 1–2–2 in their last five games, collecting four of a possible ten points. It’s a testament to the modern NHL and its quest for parity (mediocrity?) that teams can lose 4 of 5 and only be a single point behind a .500 pace. Thank you loser points, we don’t deserve you but right now we love you. Here’s the full December results — six road games and the one home game against Detroit that started this skid.

December Blues

NHL.com

I suppose this blog is the second bookend to the one I propped up back on December 7th the morning after the Leafs fell in overtime to the Wings. In that earlier piece I argued that the underlying data suggested that the Leafs needed to work on their shot share (CF%) and expected goal share (xGF%) rather than relying so much on their hot goaltending.

Leafs haven’t been up at the top of the standings because they drive shot volume or scoring chances. They just haven’t done that. If we look at the 5v5 expected goal share (xGF%) trend over the season we see a marked difference between Tampa and Toronto.

I will complete the circle on this Tampa reference later. Trust me.

Although that Detroit game stands as the first bookend, the two games leading up to it were nothing to write home about — the Leafs looked like they were on the ropes in Minnesota and Buffalo but somehow squeaked out victories.

Conspiracy theorists will no doubt link the team’s downturn with the signing of William Nylander on December 1st. Or the superstitious mom-haters out there will latch onto the Mom’s Florida trip. Or just flatly conclude that the Leafs have been playing poorly. But like anything in life, there are simple answers and there are the more complex less satisfying answers.

My favourite meme these days. I’ve fallen off the left side myself a few times.

5v5 Play

So let’s start by taking a look back at the last five games and focus on 5v5 play. Before the slump, the Leafs only lost eight times in 28 games. Nice.

But if we look at the team’s 5v5 performance before the slump compared to the last 5 games, things become interesting. (Note that I am using corsica stats already adjusted for score effects and home/away games.)

Much as I had hoped in my first bookend, the Leafs have actually improved in the key shot and expected goal measures. The CF% has grown well over 50% to 52.86%, a 2.64% improvement. Most of this has been driven by an impressive 58.74 shots per 60 minutes, up 5.57. Even shot suppression (CA60) improved slightly, dropping to 52.38 shots/60 from 52.71.

Aside: I tend to focus on the overall picture, that’s not to say that the Leafs defencemen are Norse Gods and have been flawless, far from it.

But…other teams have to compete in their end too and overall the team’s expected goal share (xGF%) improved by a more modest +1.28, still bringing the xGF% above the important 50% threshold to 51.18.

I thought we were talking about a slump? Wait, there’s more. The Leafs shooting percentage actually rose to 10.63 from 9.64.

Must be those refs then, all those penalties we had to kill? Nope. The Leafs actually drew 5 more penalties than they took. (Remember that Tampa game?)

Well what’s left? They lost 4 out of 5. The only thing left at 5v5 is goaltending. As I mentioned in the Detroit bookend article, Freddy had been playing like an MVP, saving an estimated 14 goals above expected. During this slump the Leafs goalies saw their save percentage [at 5v5] drop to 90.15% from 93.38%.

In those five games the Leafs still outscored their opponents 13–10 at 5v5. The goal differential would have actually been higher if not for the drop in save percentage.

Here’s the complex and unsatisfying part: despite that drop in save percentage, the Leafs goalies merely regressed to a level only slightly worse than that expected at the league average — they allowed 10 but 9.4 were expected. In other words, they were doing their job, just not the MVP job we had seen in the previous 28 games. As a reminder, Freddy played the last four games, Garret played the first game against Detroit.

Sometimes the trend charts can help visualize what’s been going on and help to remind us that it’s a long season filled with peaks and valleys. If we look at the 5 game rolling save percentage, you can see what happened. It’s actually quite dramatic.

A run rate closer to 95% regressed to just above 90% over the past five games

And if we look at the expected goals for and against, we can see that the team didn’t slump on those at all.

Expected Goals For was higher than average during the slump

Expected Goals Against stayed at the team average

I promised I would complete the circle on the Tampa reference when it came to xGF%. Here it is below. That large drop at the end of Tampa’s xGF% five game rolling trend is the game vs the Leafs on December 13th. Keeping in mind that these are all 5v5 trends, they had a league-dominant xGF% running at 63.9% before the game. The 45.6% xGF% result vs the Leafs dropped their moving average down more than they had seen in almost a month. Statistics may be for losers but they’re also for people willing to explore what’s going on in between the goal horns. And this matched the eye test, especially the second period when the game was still being hotly contested.

You can also see that the Leafs still have a way to go, assuming this metric lines up with what they’re trying to do on the ice. (Some suggest that their style of play with stretch passes and quick strikes may limit their growth on this stat since expected goals is a blend of shot quality and quantity.)

One last key metric is total shot share and this trend indicates that the Leafs held a possession advantage during the slump and it just kept climbing.

CF% improved noticeably during the slump (this is already adjusted for score and venue effects)

So that’s it for 5v5 play — a team playing better hockey with goaltending that returned to normal resulted in a +3 goal differential over the five games.

Overtime

Let’s also keep in mind that two of the four losses were the result of 3v3 overtime goals which are not in the above 5v5 stats. Just file those under “Larkin and Barkov” and let’s never speak of them again. Once you get to OT the result is closer to a dice toss. Leafs lost both tosses. Ouch.

The only thing I am left wondering is whether we have enough structure in terms of the length of shifts and trying to manage partial shift changes while having possession and still having some gas left in the tank. I have no numbers handy to back that up and it just might be a small sample coincidence.

Ok now let’s roll up our sleeves and look deeper under the hood at the special teams.

Penalty Kill

Five goals allowed on 18 penalty kills for a 72.2% PK% is not a great look. But one less goal allowed and suddenly it’s 78% and at the team’s season average. Such small numbers but the xGA was only 2.7 and the save % was 76.2% which is not what you need on the PK.

Powerplay

Now we’re digging into something. The Leafs powerplay has gone cold, scoring only once in 20 opportunities including 0/6 in Tampa. Not only that, the team suffered the indignity of having that lone goal erased by a shorthanded Cirelli breakaway.

Watching the powerplays has left me with the impression that teams are working very hard to stifle the PP by pressuring the side walls more — meaning they aren’t giving Matthews and Marner space and time to do their thing as smoothly as they would like. You would think that should open up some room at the slot but so far the Leafs haven’t figured that out enough to finish. Their high danger chances in Tampa showed they did get to that area (9 HD chances in 6 PP’s) but were stymied by a red hot Vasilevskiy. The Leafs scored one powerplay goal in 5 games but corsica’s model says 5.24 goals were expected from the chances they had. Overall, opposing goalies averaged an 85.7% save % — compared to 76.2% for the Leafs goalies on the PK.

Scott Wheeler of The Athletic had this observation:

Teams are starting to figure out the Leafs’ power play Here’s the thing about today’s NHL. Teams adapt. They learn. Video teaches them. You’ve got to change your game before they figure you out.

I think I fall somewhere between it being a problem with the PP becoming predictable and just a problem with finishing luck. Matthews is left-handed so he has a handicap shooting from the left side with his stick blade further away at a worse angle. A little pressure could make it harder to get his deceptive shots away and that is what seems to be happening based on my lyin’ eyeballs. On the other hand the PP1 was owning the Lightning PK defenders with all their chances and Florida was in a heap of trouble at one stage.

I think there’s enough evidence of what teams are doing to have someone in the Leafs backroom studying how to tweak the powerplay.

Summary:

Here are the bottom-line goal differentials for the five games:

5v5: +3

Special Teams: -5

Overtime: -2

Total: -4

Unfortunately for the Leafs, 2 of the 4 deficit goals occurred in OT and those were instant game enders.

My takeaway: If the special teams had been even average then the Leafs would have had a sizeable goal differential and likely would have walked away from the last 5 games with at least 6 or 7 points out of 10.

This 5 game segment was all about a powerplay slump combined with signs of a mild save percentage regression. The core of the team was just fine, the chances were there.

Looking ahead, I think the team and fans need to look at this mini-slump and recognize that special teams and goaltending may go through up and down cycles but they are critical components to a team’s success. When both cycle down, it’s much harder to win, no matter who you are.

It’s a long season, let’s see how December unfolds. But one thing I am certain of: The Leafs have a very good team this year.

Credit to corsica.hockey and NaturalStatTrick.com for their generous sharing of hockey data to the public. They accept patreon.

You can also explore hockey data through my Tableau dataviz gallery