Why The Maple Leafs Need A Defenceman More Than Any Other Addition

Why The Maple Leafs Need A Defenceman More Than Any Other Addition

Blog Article

Twenty games into this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs looked like they had emerged as a defensive juggernaut.

Under new coach Craig Berube, they posted the third-best high-danger chance rate in the league, allowing just 8.7 chances against per 60 minutes of even-strength play.

But ever since that stretch, keeping the chances down has been a struggle. In fact, over the next 40 games, the Leafs dropped to 20th in that same stat, allowing 25 percent more high-danger chances against than earlier.

That shift has been a bit confounding to try to analyze. Some of it, perhaps, is due to injuries to forwards earlier in the year, but that doesn’t explain why it’s been such a sticky trend, stretching now into early March.

Increasingly, the blue line has been a key source of the leakage.

The Leafs have really only had to play seven defencemen most of the season. They haven’t had major injuries back there, and the main rotation has been between the bottom three D, Conor Timmins, Simon Benoit and Philippe Myers, who only became a regular in December.

That’s where Toronto is going to need to upgrade, although it’s worth pointing out that the drop in chances against has been happening almost across the board, with everyone save for Chris Tanev affected dramatically.

Of the 213 defencemen who have played a regular shift in the NHL the last 40 games, Tanev ranks 22nd in high-danger chances against.

The other Leafs blueliners rank from respectable — 74th (Myers) and 89th (Jake McCabe) — down to the league’s bottom quartile, 168th to 180th (Benoit, Morgan Rielly and Timmins).

This feels like a big-time problem for a team with championship aspirations.