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NHL Analysis: Toronto Maple Leafs Give Early Signs Of Hope

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 It’s been quite a dry spell for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The franchise last won the Stanley Cup in 1967 and in the intervening years they’ve never made it back to the Finals, and only reached the conference finals a total of four times. An even bigger mark of ineptitude is the seven straight years they’ve missed the playoffs—let’s call it the ‘Curse of Gary Bettman’, since that covers the entire period since the 2005 season was cancelled. Today though, Toronto is hanging in the NHL Eastern Conference playoff race, in the #7 position. TheSportsNotebook’s NHL analysis today will focus on whether the Leafs are finally for real as a playoff team.

Let’s begin by looking at the foundation point: the play of last year’s Leafs. They finished 13th in the Eastern Conference, five spots and 12 points out of the postseason and were never really a contender. The defense was awful, the second-worst in the NHL at allowing goals. On a directly related point, the ability to kill penalties was non-existent and on the offensive side, Toronto tended to rely on the power play. They were one of the NHL’s worst teams in standard five-on-five play, meaning their chances of winning games basically depended on how a game was going to be officiated.

Everything in the sport of hockey ultimately points to the goaltender, so it won’t come as a shock to note that the biggest factor in Toronto’s improved play is much better work by the goalies. James Reimer and Ben Scrivens have split duty, and while neither is going to remind anyone of Jonathan Quick anytime soon, the Leafs are at least getting competent work. The penalty kill now ranks in about the middle of the league.

Toronto’s offense is an upper-third unit in terms of overall rank in the NHL, just as it was last season. What’s more important though, is that the Leafs aren’t nearly as dependent on the power play for producing goals. They now rank in ninth in the NHL in five-on-five action, giving them a much better hope for consistency each night.

When you break the offense down individually you find a unit that doesn’t have star power, but does have pretty good balance. Nazem Kadri at center, and flanked by forwards Phil Kessel and James van Riemsdyk and all rank in the top 60 of the NHL in points.  Kadri and Kessel have done it by passing, while van Reimsdyk has scored 11 goals. If you dig into the second, third and fourth lines, you find contributions from two left-wingers, Clarke MacArthur (five goals) and Nikolai Kulemin (10 assists), right-winger Matt Fratton (seven goals) and centers Tyler Bozak and Mikhail Grabovksi, who have combined for 11 goals and 10 assists.

And when we say Toronto has no star power, that’s based on current production. Kessel is a very talented offensive player and if he were to break out and elevate his game, it brings a whole new dimension to the Leafs’ offense.

That’s all the good news. The bad news is this—we’ll start with the number of games Toronto has played, second-most among the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference. In a league where the standings are done by point total rather than winning percentage, additional games skew the results. The Leafs have played three more games than the nearest contenders just outside the playoff bubble. In fairness, they have a five-point lead, so that means teams that aren’t playing well would suddenly have to win all three. Nonetheless, it means that while Toronto’s play to date is legitimately playoff-caliber, it’s closer than the point standings alone would indicate.

The second concern is how much of the play to date is going to be sustainable. The stats that concern me the most are that Toronto is 24th in the NHL at both generating shots on goal and preventing them. It’s going to be incredibly difficult to continue scoring enough to win at that rate, and on the defensive side it puts a lot of pressure on Reimer and Scrivens on goal—pressure neither has show the ability to handle for a full season.

You can tell I’m skeptical of seeing Toronto finally break their playoff drought this year, but next week will be an important testing time for them, with four games against legitimate playoff-caliber competition. The Leafs host New Jersey on Monday, then play back-to-back games against Northeast Division rivals Ottawa and Boston, the latter of which is on the road. Then on Saturday Toronto comes back home to face Pittsburgh. By late Saturday night, Leafs fans will have a good sense of whether to get their hopes up, or just to redirect their attention to baseball and the new-look Blue Jays.

But whether you’re skeptical or not, whether this team meets its test or not, at least the Toronto Maple Leafs have given the fan base some hope as the season reaches the halfway point. That, in of itself, says plenty.

 

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The New York Rangers Are Rolling In The East

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The New York Rangers have been atop of the Eastern Conference for most of the year, but over the past three weeks they’ve opened up some breathing room. A three-game win streak that was culminated with a 3-2 win over Washington yesterday means that the Ranges now lead Philadelphia & Pittsburgh by eight points in the Atlantic Division, and are plus-seven on Boston in the Eastern Conference overall.  New York is going to be tough to catch for the top seed in the playoffs, so TheSportsNotebook is giving them a closer look today, particularly at their recent streak where they’ve won seven of nine.

Let’s start with an overall profile of the team. New York lives and dies with its goaltender, Henrik Lundqvist, who’s save rate is 93.9% and has put him at the forefront of MVP discussion. My vote still goes to Evgeni Malkin in Pittsburgh, but I can’t argue that Lundqvist is a credible candidate. New York is second in the league in goals allowed, and that’s in spite of ranking ninth in shots allowed. What this suggests is that we have a defensive team pretty good in its own right, accompanied by a great goaltender. That’s the kind of combination that sets up victory parades in June.

New York has two big weapons offensively and both operate on the right wing, with Marian Gaborik and Ryan Callahan.  The opposite wing is a big weakness, while the Rangers are adequate at center. Derek Stepan is functionable and Brad Richards is respectable, particularly in passing, a skill even more important on a team where the wingers rely on being set up in positions to score.

Where New York has shown problems over the course of the year is on the power play, where they are awful, and in generating shots. In spite of Gaborik and Callahan’s talents, the Rangers are in the bottom third of the NHL in launching shots on goal. They’re still 10th in the bottom line of lighting the lamp, suggesting an ability to create good shots, either through screening the goaltender or crashing for the rebounds, or ideally, both. And for all New York’s problems on the power play, they are very good in the reverse spot, when it’s time to kill a penalty.

Now let’s go into the specifics of this streak, which started on January 21. New York got a 3-2 in Boston in a game televised by the NHL Network on a Saturday afternoon. Lundqvist and Tim Thomas had a great goaltenders battle, with each team getting 30-plus shots, and it going to overtime at 2-2. New York won in an unexpected way—a power play goal with four seconds left in overtime. Callahan and Gaborik combined to score all three goals.

From there, the Rangers came home at shut out Winnipeg, with Callahan scoring a goal and delivering an assist. On January 31, the key to beating New York in this recent stretch was brought to light. It wasn’t any piece of strategic wizardry. It just involved putting the New Jersey Devils on the ice. The Devils are the only team to beat the Rangers over the last nine games, getting this one in the shootout session at 4-3. Lundqvist showed some cracks, as the defense only allowed 29 shots on goal. The goalie came back strong against Buffalo the following night in a 1-0 shootout win, where he turned back all 34 Sabres shots.

On Super Bowl Sunday, with other activities occupying Big Apple sports fan, the Rangers got the first of what would be two key games with Philadelphia during this streak, and used three third-period goals to beat Philly 5-2. The performance was dominating, as they generated 38 shots and Stephan stepped up with two assists. Two nights later came the second Devils’ loss, a 1-0 affair with Martin Brodeur going to the Fountain Of Youth and coming up with the big win over Lundqvist.

Lundqvist was shaky this past Thursday, February 9, against Tampa at home. The Lightning only got 17 shots, but three found the back of the net. An early power-play goal from Callahan helped put the game into overtime, where the Rangers survived 4-3.

Then came this past weekend. Another 5-2 win over Philly went down on Saturday, this one on the road. The defensive performance fell in line with the season-long trend. The Flyers assaulted Lundqvist, with 33 shots (compared to 26 for New York), and the goalie mostly turned them back. The offensive performance decidedly did not fall into the season-long pattern. The power play was dominant, getting seven chances and cashing in three. Then yesterday’s 3-2 win over Washington in MSG was a fairly evenly played affair, but New York’s superior penalty kill team turned the tide on the Caps and got a shorthanded goal early in the third period to help put the game out of reach.

If you’re a Rangers fan, you have to like what you’ve seen these past three weeks and not just for the obvious reason that your team is winning. New York is showing an ability to win even when their ideal game plan breaks down. They’ve won with power play scoring. They’ve won when Lundqvist hasn’t been at his best. They’ve gotten good team defensive games. And when three of your nine games are against Philadelphia and Boston it’s not as though you’ve hit a soft spot in the schedule. New York is for real as a Stanley Cup contender and will be a deserving favorite in the East.