Scott’s Thoughts: Bozak’s Underwhelming Performance to Start the Season

This isn’t breaking news, but Tyler Bozak has been less than stellar to start the season, even by his own standards. While we aren’t expecting Bozak to be a shutdown center (in fact, he can hardly play well defensively when played in a sheltered role), he can at least be good enough to make up for his terrible defense with good offensive generation.

However, Bozak’s offensive production is not even close to making up for his defense this year. He seems to be struggling, and he isn’t making up for it offensively. While on paper he has 4 points, only two of them have come at even strength, and one of them was an assist off a faceoff win.

Meanwhile, his defensive game is significantly worse than usual. While his 52.48% 5v5 Score Adjusted CF% this season is the highest in his career, his -6.96.% 5v5 Corsi Rel is the worst of his career, and the worst among all forwards on the team. So, he’s benefiting from playing on a team performing really well early on, since the Leafs as a team have a league leading 57.75% Score Adjusted CF%, and not a single player on the team is below a 51% CF%.

It’s more than the numbers that support this as well. It’s pretty noticeable when you’re watching him that he’s struggling a bit more. It seems that when ever his line is in the defensive zone, you’ll notice him wandering aimlessly, or making an error that leads to a scoring chance or goal.

So, how can we fix this issue? What can we do to help improve his play, or at the very least, make it easier for him? I have a suggestion for a slight change in the lineup that could maybe improve this.

Hyman – Matthews – Nylander

Marleau – Kadri – Marner

van Riemsdyk – Bozak – Komarov

Martin – Moore/Fehr – Brown

Basically, swap Komarov and Marner in the lineup. How will this impact Bozak? I think putting Komarov on that line will help improve the lines play in the defensive zone, considering that Komarov is one of the best defensive forwards on the team. This will also give us a chance to see how good Marner’s defensive game is, because so far we’ve only seen him on the line with Bozak and JVR, who aren’t well known for their defense. Perhaps he excels with Kadri and Marleau in the shutdown role.

The con to this change is that we’d be taking one of our best defensive forwards and putting him in a sheltered role, and while that means he’ll be really good, it will also be a waste for him, as his minutes would be better spent in the shutdown role. Also, Marner may not do well in the shutdown role, and this means that the shutdown line would be an ineffective shutdown line. While Kadri would probably be fine on his own, Komarov would probably make that role easier for him than Kadri.

Now, Babcock might be putting Brown with Bozak and JVR for tomorrow’s game, so that could also be something that benefits Bozak. While this move might be more of a wake up call for Marner, Brown could be a change that helps the sheltered line, but there’s also some uncertainty with it.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into what could easily be a very poor five game stretch from Bozak, but it might be more than that. After all, he’s hitting the point where he’s past his prime, and declining, so we might see the start of Bozak getting worse defensively, which is something no one wants to see.