Toronto Maple Leafs

Ron Wilson Has Been Here Before

I know many have already decided the Leafs are going to finish in the bottom 2 or 3 teams in the NHL this coming season. Right there alongside the LA Kings (who I think prognosticators are under-rating), St. Louis Blues, and Florida Panthers. We’ll be in the thick of things for John Tavares and nobody will be happy about it… or something. Now there’s two problems I see with this. 1) If the Leafs ARE in the running for John Tavares, then very few people will be unhappy. The writers will get to pen pieces about the future of the Leafs, and how the sad sack franchise needs to gut itself some more to improve. The fans will get to think big thoughts about the potential to sign Victor Hedman, or John Tavares, or whoever else is a top rated draft pick come June of next year. 2) If the Leafs DON’T fall so far behind the competition, the fans can have some belief that the team is actually moving in a reasonable direction with Mr.s Fletcher and Wilson at the controls, and perhaps this youth movement thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Ron Wilson is not a stranger to dealing with younger clubs. When he was brought in to coach the San Jose Sharks during the 2002-03 NHL season, they were en-route to 73 point season. They still had Teemu Selanne (32), Adam Graves (34), Owen Nolan (30), Vincent Damphousse (34), Mike Ricci (30), Scott Thornton (31), Dan McGillis (30), Bryan Marchment (33), and Marcus Ragnarsson (31) on the club.

By the time the 2003-04 NHL season rolled around, the only remaining players on the club over 30 were Damphousse, Thornton, and Ricci. One of the main concerns at the time was “where will the scoring come from?” The team lost it’s top scorer in Selanne, it’s captain in Nolan, and some of the aging veteran “leadership” provided by Graves. The team DID retain some very talented younger players in Patrick Marleau (23), Jonathan Cheechoo (23), Marco Sturm (24), Brad Stuart (23), and good goal tending in Nabokov (28) and Toskala (26). It should be noted that Marleau and Cheechoo scored only 57 and 47 points respectively in ‘03-’04, yet they were the two leading goal scorers for the Sharks that season with 28 goals apiece. Only 2 players on the entire club scored more than 50 points.

Defensive acumen and some offensive production was provided by the likes of Nils Ekman (27), Alyn McCauley (26), Alexander Korolyuk (27), and Wayne Primeau (27). A strong and physical, yet mobile Defense was built with the likes of Kyle McLaren (26), Scott Hannan (24), Tom Preissing (24), Christian Ehrhoff (21), with the veteran leadership being provided by Mike Rathje (29). The Sharks D accounted for 22 goals and 112 assists, for 134 points.

Compare that Sharks team to next season’s Leafs. Again there are concerns around where the Offense is going to come from now that Sundin, Tucker, and Wellwood (the top PP forward unit for the Leafs two years ago) is gone. The top forward scorers remaining from last season are Antropov (27), Blake (33), Steen (23) and Ponikarovsky (27). Antropov and Steen had 56 and 42 points last year respectively scoring 26 and 15 goals each. Note the parallels between Marleau and Cheechoo in terms of overall point production.

The Leafs D is a bit more robust as a scoring unit, consisting of Tomas Kaberle (29), Pavel Kubina (30), Ian White (23), Anton Stralman (21), Carlo Colaiacovo (24), Jeff Finger (27), and Jonas Frogen (27). As a group they put up 37 goals and 111 assists for 148 points (*excluding Bryan McCabe, but including Finger’s numbers from Colorado. No points were included for Frogen).

The similarities continue with other players sprinkled throughout the line ups of both teams. Consider the following:

Nils Ekman played a vital role on the ‘03-’04 Sharks. He was their 2nd leading scorer with 55 points, and he potted 22 goals. His speed and determination as a checker also helped improve the overall team D in San Jose. Obviously Niklas Hagman will be expected to fill the same role with the Leafs this coming season. Last year, he scored 27 goals, a career high, but if he can score 20 this coming season we can consider that a success. Most of his scoring has come at even strength, and he is considered a very fast, solid penalty killer.

Alyn McCauley was considered solid leadership material in Toronto before he was sent the other way in the Owen Nolan trade. He was mainly lauded for his defensive tendencies, and prior to playing his first full year in San Jose, his season high for points was a 25, although he did have that magical run with Gary Roberts in the ‘01-’02 playoffs where he scored 15 points in 20 games. In ‘03-’04, he managed to score 20 goals and 47 points. Matt Stajan is having a lot of similar things said about him that McCauley heard prior to his breakout season with the Sharks. Slightly more gifted offensively, Stajan has already posted a 39 point season, and he scored 16 goals last year. Expecting him to step up to the level of 45 to 50 points should not be considered ridiculous.

Marco Sturm was a young German with lots of speed, and a goal scorers instinct. He’d joined the Sharks as an 18 year old in the ‘97-’98 season and was considered fast, durable, with solid potential as a scorer. He scored 10 goals, and 30 points as a rookie. His point totals hovered in the mid-30’s through his first 4 seasons, and then in his 5th season as a 22 year old, he scored 21 goals, and 41 points. In his 6th year (the disappointing ‘02-’03 season) as a 23 year old he scored 28 goals, and 48 points. His first full year under Wilson in ‘03-’04, he went on to score 21 goals and 41 points, despite only playing in 64 games before missing the last 18 games of the season, due to a fairly horrific broken ankle. Prior to his injury he was on pace to score 27 goals, and 53 points, which would have made him the Sharks 3rd leading scorer after Marleau and Ekman. Following the lock out in ‘05-’06, Sturm finally blossomed into a prime-time player and was the major part of the Joe Thornton deal going back to Boston. That season he scored 29 goals, and 59 points.

Alex Steen is a very solid defender (probably one of - if not THE - most defensively conscientious Left Wingers in the NHL) and he too boasts good speed and some solid offensive instincts. More of a passer than a goal scorer, Steen’s rookie year would have occurred when he was 20, in the ‘04-’05 season. Unfortunately due to the lockout he played another year in Sweden (alongside Forsberg and friends though, so maybe it wasn’t such a big minus) before returning to the land he was born in, and scoring 18 goals and 45 points as a rookie in ‘05-’06. He has scored at least 15 goals in all 3 of his seasons with the Leafs thus far, and should be able to score 20 at the NHL level if he is given more ice time and opportunity on the power play. He possesses a great backhand (almost half his goals were scored on backhands last season), and great vision of the ice. Like Sturm, his 24th year will be his first full season under Ron Wilson’s tutelage. Sturm had an excellent break-out season, which was unfortunately marred by injury. Expect for Steen to have a similar improvement next season, and hopefully look towards his totals jumping into the 50-60 point range.

Obviously the two teams are not identical, San Jose was a tad younger; The Leafs have a more veteran D; Nabokov and Toskala of 4 years ago were probably superior to Toskala and Joseph now. There is no easy comparison between Marleau, Cheechoo, Korolyuk, Primeau, and Thornton of the Sharks, and Antropov, Kulemin, Garbovski, Moore, and Ponikarovsky of the Leafs (actually one could argue there is looking at those two lists, but I’ve got to wrap this up sometime).

I’m not going to say the Leafs are guaranteed to come out next season and win 43 games, and put up 104 points in the standings en route to winning their division, just because San Jose did so in their first full season under Ron Wilson. He had half a year prior in San Jose to institute his system of play, and there will be some adjustment time for the Leafs this year. He coached San Jose for the last 57 games of ‘02-’03 and that team only managed 19 wins and 45 points (that’s a .333 winning percentage, and a .395 point percentage folks - not pretty). Obviously this will take some time, but considering the year over year improvements, and the huge change in defensive play from his previous clubs, I wouldn’t say it’s insane to think the Leafs might garner 85-95 points this year. That won’t put them in the playoffs, but it isn’t dead last or leaders for John Tavares either.

A lot of this comes down to how much improvement he can get out of the club defensively. San Jose scored 219 goals and let in 183 in the 2003-2004 season. In 2002-2003, they scored 214 and let in 239. Year over year, that’s an increase in goals for of 5, and a decrease in goals against of 56. Pretty damn solid frankly. The Leafs scored 231 goals and let in 260 last year under Paul Maurice. That would be a reduction of 77 goals against - not amazingly likely.

That being said, if we think that Wilson can reasonably reduce the goals against by 40 to 45 goals, that would bring their goals against down to something between 215 and 220. If we also reasonably assume there won’t be a huge decrease in goals for (and I sincerely doubt there will be), that means the Leafs should score slightly more goals than they allow. If the improvement continues year over year, the team should be on the road to recovery. All there is to do now, is sit back and see how this all takes shape.