Embed from Getty Images There aren’t nearly as many statistics available to evaluate goalies as there are to evaluate forwards and defencemen. That’s true whether you’re talking about the standard boxcar stats that newspapers and NHL.com have reported for years, or whether you’re referring to the newer breed of numbers often called “analytics” or “advanced…
Embed from Getty Images There was a lot of excitement in Leafs Nation heading into the 2016-17 NHL season, with a crop of top prospects that included 1st overall pick Auston Matthews, Memorial Cup MVP Mitch Marner, and Swedish wunderkind William Nylander. It took just one game for that excitement to pay off when Matthews…
Embed from Getty Images The biggest roster move the Leafs made this summer was acquiring Frederik Andersen from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for 30th overall, a 2017 second round draft pick, and Jonathan Bernier. One of the things that jumps out about Andersen is his size. At 6’4″ and 230 pounds, he’s one of…
Embed from Getty Images Back in June, on the day that the Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Auston Matthews first overall, Mike Babcock told reporters that Matthews would start the year playing on the 3rd line, with Nazem Kadri and Tyler Bozak ahead of him on the depth chart. On Wednesday this week Babcock repeated that…
Embed from Getty Images It’s well known that September is Jake Gardiner Appreciation Month. But did you know that Toronto has other defencemen? It’s true. One of those defencemen is Morgan Rielly, the former 5th overall pick who recently played a major role on the exciting Young Guns team at the World Cup of Hockey. …
Embed from Getty Images As everybody knows, September is Jake Gardiner Appreciation Month. I kicked off JGAM by writing about how, contrary to popular opinion, Gardiner is actually very good defensively. As I discussed in that piece, Jake has had pretty big, positive defensive impacts over the past few seasons, comparable to some of the…
Photo Credit: Kevin Hoffman/USA TODAY SPORTS If you were to ask people around the NHL what Jake Gardiner is good at, you’d probably hear a lot of things related to his offensive abilities. Earlier this year James Reimer said that Gardiner has a rare aptitude for passing. Writing for the Canadian Press last fall, Stephen…
Embed from Getty Images There’s now less than a month until NHL training camps open up and, and the first exhibition games will start getting played in late September. That means Auston Matthews’s debut with the Toronto Maple Leafs is getting pretty near. While Auston’s time spent playing in the World Cup may delay his…
Photo Credit: Kim Klement/USA TODAY SPORTS When the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Roman Polak to a $2.25M contract last month, did they do it with the intention of having him play some or all of the 2016-17 NHL season with the Toronto Marlies? The question seems silly. Why would you sign a player to a…
Photo Credit: Brad Rempel/USA TODAY SPORTS Back in 2014, I wrote an article about Randy Carlyle’s effect on Corsi for players on the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was the end of Carlyle’s second full season behind the bench after taking over for Ron Wilson part-way, and it seemed like a good time to reflect on…
Photo Credit: Christian Bonin/TSGPhoto.com It’s pretty evident that the Leafs are in a very tight situation in regard to the NHL’s salary cap at the moment. As of the time I’m writing this, General Fanager has the Leafs at just $55,916 in cap space. CapFriendly, which uses a slightly different list of players, has the…
Embed from Getty Images Martin Marincin is the last remaining Toronto Maple Leaf with an arbitration hearing scheduled. Peter Holland and Frank Corrado both signed short-term contracts with the team shortly before their arbitration dates, while Marincin is set for Tuesday, August 2. Before Holland’s hearing, I took a shot at guessing what his AAV…
