Toronto Maple Leafs

Recent Trends Do Not Imply Coaching Fault To Me

Alright - I go away for 2 days, and look what I come back to.  People are still certain Ron Wilson is a failure, and Brian Burke screwed us up for the coming decade.  Despite the fact the Leafs won 2-1 in a shoot out over the Capitals, there are still some serious flaws on this club, and I don’t dispute those facts.

The team needs to shore up their D, and they need to score more when things are even up.  They could use a stronger down low presence, and they SERIOUSLY need to think about trading some pieces in order to address their lack of depth offensively.  The bottom 6 might not be counted on to do any of the scoring in Brian Burke’s mold of a team, but the top 6 aren’t producing enough yet for that system to work quite right.

So let me run through a few things, and let’s see where we end up.

Things beyond Ron Wilson’s control - the Leafs shoot out record.

Lee Stempniak 0-2, John Mitchell 0-1, Tomas Kaberle 0-1, Phil Kessel 1-2, and Niklas Hagman 1-1.  No Leaf had scored on a single shoot out shot until last night against the Capitals.

In terms of goal tending, going into last night’s tilt with the Caps, the Leafs had recorded ZERO saves in the shoot out.  0 for 4.  So out of their three opportunities for victories in the shoot out so far, the Leafs have 1 W.

4 on 4?  The Leafs haven’t fared much better.  All 4 of the goals they’ve allowed while playing 4 on 4 have occurred in OT.  They have yet to score a goal in overtime.

So let’s review, that’s 6 of their 1 goal game losses.  Add the other 3 in regulation, and that’s 9 total.  If HALF of those had gone the other way, the Leafs would have 8 wins, and possibly an 8-10-3 record, which would give them 19 points out of a possible 42.  That’s still only a .452 winning percentage, but I don’t see people calling for Wilson’s head on a platter if that’s the Leafs record.

They would also be ahead of Carolina, Minnesota, and Anaheim in the standings.  The ridiculous thing about it is, the team could have virtually identical goaltending, shooting and power play and penalty kill percentages and they would be a hell of a lot better off in the standings.

Ron Wilson can’t control the number of give aways the Leafs have made… 4th most in the NHL.

He’s responsible for instituting a system of play, and working on special teams.  The team has a decent power play, 4th in the NHL at 24.4%.  Their penalty killing is dead last yet again, but it’s actually been reasonable over the past 3 weeks.  Since October 31st where they lost 5-4 to Montreal in a shoot out, the PK has given up 6 goals on 40 chances in 10 games.  That’s an 85% kill rate, which is pretty decent.

If you compare their 85% PK rate over the past 10 games, to those of the top 10 penalty killing teams in the NHL, the Leafs would only be bested by Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, and Phoenix.  Despite their horrible standing overall at 73.6%, it really hasn’t been that bad recently.

Their PP over that same stretch of 10 games has continued to serve them adequately, producing at a 20.5% clip.  It has dropped off a bit, but since their PP and PK% combined equals 105.5% over that stretch, they’re doing pretty well overall.

Even strength production has also improved recently, with the team producing 19 even strength goals in the past 10 games, after only producing 13 in the first 11 games.

Their Even Strength D has actually gotten worse over the past 10 games though, so that is an area for concern.  They’ve allowed 26 goals at even strength in the past 10 games, after allowing only 24 through the first 11 games.

If we allocate special teams to Ron Wilson and the coaching staff, the PP has done decently considering the personnel available, and the PK has improved drastically of late.

If we discuss the coaching of younger players as a reflection on Wilson, you’d have to argue that Grabovski and Mitchell have rounded out their games more offensively with respect to puck distribution, and both are on pace to improve their numbers from last season marginally, largely as a result of the assist category.

I do not feel that Ron Wilson is to blame for Jason Blake’s horrible shooting percentage, any more than he is responsible for Matt Stajan’s wonderful shooting percentage.  I also don’t think either player is producing at the level expected of them entering this season.

If he is responsible for getting the most out of his players, does he get to take credit for Alexei Ponikarovsky and Niklas Hagman both being on pace to score 31 goals this season?  Does he get to take credit for Phil Kessel being on pace to score 39 goals?

What about Tomas Kaberle’s 86 point pace… does he get credit for that?  That would be Tomas’ career best for a single season point total.

I don’t really think Stempniak producing 20 goals would be seen as a horrible thing, even if it’s not quite the 27 he had as a rookie.  Meanwhile, Jeff Finger is on pace for 37 points, does Ron Wilson get credit for that?

Ian White is on pace to produce 47 points, that’s pretty solid isn’t it?  Matt Stajan is on track to score a  career high 20 goals and register 53 points.  Both of those guys are working as hard as they can I’m betting.

Colton Orr is on pace to register 230 PIMs this season, which would surpass his career high by 37 minutes.  He’s also on pace to fight 27 times this year.  Is THAT not good enough?

Let’s face it… generally speaking this team is producing for Wilson to the best of their abilities at this stage of the proceedings.  They’re getting very few breaks, and they aren’t producing WHEN they need to (i.e. in the first period, the final 2 minutes of the game, or in OT/shoot out situations).

I’m pretty sure no matter how I lay all of this out, people will argue that I’m prevaricating on behalf of Wilson.  To some extent that is true, but I think what all of this comes down to is, the Leafs have lost a lot of their offensive depth.

Last year the top 6 scorers on the Leafs in terms of goal production combined to score 126 goals.  This year’s edition of the top 6 could combine to score almost 160. That’s a substantial increase of roughly 25%.  No small feat.

Unfortunately for the Leafs, the rest of the team last season combined to score 118 goals, while this year they are on pace to produce 74.  That’s a drop of roughly 38%.

In the end that means the team is on track to produce 13 fewer goals, 231.  Last season that would roughly rank them 16th overall.

Defensively they gave up 286 goals last season (most in the NHL).  This year they are on track to give up 296 based on their play over their entire 21 game schedule so far.  If we look at their play over the past 10 games though (i.e. including Phil Kessel, with Gustavsson playing more in net, and with Jeff Finger and Carl Gunnarsson taking a larger role on the PK - which could theoretically maintain a roughly 80% kill rate long term) the Leafs could feasibly reduce their goals against to the 270 range.

231 goals for vs. 270 goals against translates to a season where the Leafs register a .445 winning percentage over the final 61 games of the season.  Theoretically this could manifest itself in the Leafs ending up with 31 wins on the season, or just as easily, 68 points (using a .445 points percentage).  68 points is still pretty atrocious, and worse than last season, but it would still be better than the two worst teams in the NHL last season - the NY Islanders, and TB Lightning.

All of this of course is based on recent trends continuing, and the Leafs situation remaining status quo.

If the Leafs can shed some of the dead weight on the bottom two lines, improve their goaltending, and actually get some better results from the bottom 6 forwards on the team offensively, the numbers in question could improve further.  If that does happen, the Leafs may end up where many foresaw them in the off season, hovering around the 80-85 point plateau.  The season is far from over, and considering the start the team has produced in the first 20 games, it’s shocking to think they could still garner 66 points over the final 61 games.  Shocking, but not impossible.