Role Pacing: Forwards

I’m seeing a lot of 82 game pace numbers being spread around the Internet right now for forwards on the Toronto Maple Leafs, mostly for the sake of arguing about people. The issue I have with a lot of these numbers is that they don’t account for ice time, so for the sake of your yelling, I’ve adjusted the numbers a bit for you. Enjoy and fly forth, young angry birds.

These are the current numbers for the Toronto Maple Leafs forwards. Goals, assists, points, and minutes. Lets keep it nice and simple; even games played will be irrelevant for now.

Now, what happens when you put a player in the top six? Based on the structure of this team in the past couple of years, I’ve concluded that a first line player should expect to play about twenty minutes (slightly higher this year, but I digress), and a second line player about eighteen. Here’s how everybody adjusts.

The Leafs use their third line more than most teams, to make up for the fact that their fourth line is really a fighting squad and Jay McClement. As such, you get fifteen minutes a game on the third line, and seven minutes a game on the fourth.

Of course, this style of pace adjustment also doesn’t tell the whole story. Players like David Bolland and Josh Leivo are riding high numbers under low original minutes, which basically gives an extrapolation of a small sample size. Carter Ashton’s adjustment doesn’t account for the fact he’s still playing those 20 minutes a night with Colton Orr instead of Phil Kessel. Hell, if Orr played with Kessel, he may have some points to work with (don’t try this Randy). Conversely, if any of the first liners played fourth line minutes, their roles would change and production would drop. We’re also not accounting for chemistry either; what happens if Tyler Bozak drops to a line with say, Clarkson and Raymond and loses his Kessel-collaborative superpowers?

But you still get an idea of how their current play would work if given the time limits of a certain line, which is more accurate.than stretching to 82 games.