Hockey Night in Canada @hockeynight 12/6/2018

Dom L had the game odds at 76% for the Leafs last night. That’s when I knew we were in trouble. With Nylander’s debut the Leafs had a full lineup for the first time this season and proceeded to fall behind a struggling and depleted Red Wings team 4–1. I can imagine Babcock saying something Babcockian in the second intermission like:

“Yer not foolin’ anyone, yer a bunch of lazy bums out there, now go help yer backup goalie or join the 4th line.”

They came out roaring in the third led by John Tavares and Morgan Rielly and tied it up 4–4 with goals by JT, Hyman, and Johnsson. But one period doesn’t win a game and they ended up losing in OT, wringing out a single loser point — key word “loser” here. To anyone watching, this game encapsulated the Bad Leafs™ not the 20 and 8 Good Leafs.

Let’s talk about scoring chances first.

5v5 Scoring Chances

If we just want to talk Corsi and shot differential (which I don’t) the Leafs looked fine, outshooting the Red Wings 67–52 (56%) and winning every period but 17 of those shots were blocked by a determined team playing like a team, even if they were outmanned and outgunned. And most of that advantage took place in a wild third period with Rielly activated to skate right into the OZ. That’s what “score effects” can do when one team is chasing the game.

Scoring chances were much closer, 24–27. But what struck me is how the Leafs coughed up 18 high danger scoring chances while only mustering 10 themselves. NaturalStatTrick’s shot map painted the picture. That blue smudge in front of the net is Garret Sparks being left on his own.

But to understand that smudge, I think it’s time we stopped fixating on the defencemen and looked at the forward lines.

I was going to tweet out before the game that I thought it was crazy that Nylander would be thrown right in like that after being off for seven months. But I didn’t want to spoil the fun. Here’s the Leafs top two lines last night with their on-ice HDCF stats. (Remember, these are the high danger chances for and against when they were on the ice, not their individual chances.)

Table 1 On-Ice HD chances data NaturalStatTrick

The Matthews line basically got taken to the cleaners while the Tavares line with Marner and Hyman scored two goals and had an edge in chances. If the Leafs hope to contend, they’ll need a top line that can drive chances, not shoot their way ahead all of the time. It was interesting that Babcock benched a tired Nylander for the third and demoted a largely invisible Marleau when he needed scoring. Johnsson and Kapanen gave the line a lift and together with JT the Leafs fought back.

Patrick Marleau has not looked that good this season to my eye, despite his 7 goals. You can see below that Marleau has actually had better shot shares away from first line duty with Matthews (49.8% vs 47.2%). And in a very small sample Matthews has done better without Marleau (62.3% vs 47.2%).

Table 2 from NaturalStatTrick 5v5

I’m just not sure that a Matthews — Marleau tandem is going to be effective. Patrick Marleau happens to rank last among Leafs forwards when it comes to on-ice expected goal share (aka “Rel xGF%” on corsica) relative to his team (-7.17%) and it’s even worse relative to the teammates he plays with on the ice (-9.59%).

I think it’s getting close to the time when Marleau will be permanently demoted from the Matthews line. (I love Patty by the way but facts are facts.) Around this time last year I suggested that Leo Komarov was hurting Kadri’s line and should be demoted. I took a lot of flak on twitter at the time. Sometimes it’s not fun being the messenger.

Anyways, the line wasn’t helped by trying to play Nylander on the first line when he was obviously gassed part way through the second. The line gave up a party basket full of high danger chances in the first two periods against a weak team. Let’s take note of that line’s performance and accept that part of this has to do with Auston and Willie regaining their game after lengthy layoffs.

Now let’s step back a little so we can see how the team has done overall when it comes to chances and other key stats. Clearly the team as a whole has done well, outscoring its competition by 28 goals and winning 20 of its first 29 games. But not everything has been humming along.

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.

The Detroit game helped dip the 5 game moving average but you can see how Tampa has reacted to losing their top goaltender to injury. The Lightning are driving expected goals like a boss. Toronto is bouncing around closer to the middle of the league.

Table 3 5v5 corsica (adjusted for score/venue)

A quick look at the above table shows that the team is middle of the pack in driving shots and expected goal share because it actually ranks higher at allowing shots and chances against. Ideally you want to rank 31st at allowing 5v5 shots per 60 minutes, not 4th.

The real reasons the Leafs are doing so well despite missing Auston and Willie lie at the bottom of Table 3. The shooting % and more importantly the 93.16 5v5 save % have produced the 2nd best goal differential in the NHL.

Goaltending

This bar chart shows goalie stats for all situations, not just 5v5. Freddy Andersen has faced a heavy workload and ranks first in save % for goalies with over 1,000 minutes. He’s a genuine Vezina candidate at this stage. This is the biggest story of the season so far for the Leafs, whether it’s drawn enough attention or not.

1000+ minutes data corsica

And below we can see that Andersen is estimated to have saved an additional 14 goals above expected given the shots he has faced.

Those extra 14 goals are a big reason why the Leafs are where they are in the standings. In fact they account for half of the Leafs total goal differential of +28.

Which brings us to Garret Sparks. I did not think he looked very good last night. And it could have been worse. This double post miracle happened in the last ten seconds of regulation with the teams tied 4–4.

But we need to remind ourselves that it was one game and it wasn’t like the Leafs were doing a very good job in front of him. So let’s go back to some numbers and see what Garret’s season has looked like in his 6 games. (whispers: the team has picked up 9 of 12 points in those starts.)

Garret ranks 6th in High Danger Save %. Bet that surprised you. HDSV% tends to be a more reliable indicator of a goalie’s abilities although this IS only 6 games.

His 91.18 overall save percentage places him 27th out of 60 goalies with 360+ minutes. If there is a problem, it’s his inconsistency. Last night’s save percentage of 84.4 was his 2nd worst game. In 6 games he has 3 games below 86% and 3 above 97%.

Garret was one of the reasons the Leafs lost last night but he wasn’t the only one. I showed the party basket of chances the first line was giving up, few goalies would come out the winner in a game like that. Still, I’d like to do the opposite of what most of you might be thinking. I would start playing him more regularly in the middle dog days of the season and give Freddy some rest. Give Garret a schedule and let him build his consistency, confidence and experience against NHL forwards. After all, he won the Calder Cup and he has an above average backup save percentage. We should just be patient and accept that Sparks is going to take some time to find his groove and will have a few stinkers along the way.

Last night was a microcosm of some of the underlying forces driving the Leafs’ performance this season. Hopefully I’ve added a wider angle to that one game and we will see the Leafs working to bolster their scoring chance share and backup goaltending over the coming weeks as the lines and players settle in.