Team

Betting

The LeafsNation has no direct affiliation to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, NHL, or NHLPA

Leafs 48-game Predictions

By Gus Katsaros

Jan 15, 2013, 11:11 ESTUpdated: Jan 15, 2013, 01:47 EST

Comments

The season is less than a handful of days away from opening night, which means poolies have returned to their drafts. As a result, we updated our predictions at McKeen’s Hockey for the entire league.

I figured since we made these updates, it was only fitting to post the Leafs projections for the shortened season.

Originally posted the full season predictions here.

A few notes before we get into these.

Making predictions is mostly an effort in editorial, since the accuracy is clearly affected by that first injury, with effects downstream that affect others on the roster. I don’t take these numbers written in stone, but rather a guide somewhat, putting an expectation of the type of production, rather than trying to nail the production in every instance.

Methodology behind the predictions included both scouting and statistical – both conventional and advanced – analysis while sharing amongst the group and deciding on a consensus as we put together the annual yearbook.

Predicting for 82 games is difficult enough, but 48 games present a different challenge. It’s not simply a representation of 48 games of an 82 game schedule. It’s also not like taking the 82 game predictions and multiplying by a factor of .585 to get the representative 48-game results. It’s an almost new process taking the shortened season and limiting games to with the Conference.

As pure presentation, the following is the production of Leafs after surpassing 48 games played last season, not necessarily at the 48 game mark:

Player	GP	G	A	Pts	+/-	PIM	PPG	SOG
Joffrey Lupul	48	20	32	52	3	40	5	138
Phil Kessel	48	26	25	51	1	10	6	170
Mikhail Grabovski	48	18	21	39	8	14	4	106
Tyler Bozak	48	13	22	35	5	20	4	79
Clarke MacArthur	48	17	13	30	5	22	3	87
Dion Phaneuf	48	7	21	28	1	54	5	135
Tim Connolly	48	9	18	27	0	24	2	74
John-Michael Liles	48	4	18	22	-7	14	2	80
Cody Franson	48	4	16	20	-2	20	2	59
Nikolai Kulemin	48	5	13	18	2	6	1	70
Jake Gardiner	48	2	15	17	8	18	0	49
Joey Crabb	48	8	9	17	1	24	0	55
Carl Gunnarsson	48	2	13	15	4	16	0	62
Matthew Lombardi	48	7	7	14	-15	10	0	82
Luke Schenn	48	1	12	13	5	37	0	48
Matt Frattin	48	6	6	12	-1	16	0	75
Dave Steckel	48	7	1	8	-1	8	1	49
Mike Brown	48	2	2	4	-8	74	4	127

The line combinations for the original predictions mostly stayed the same.

The equivalent goals scored (or assists/points, etc) for an 82 game season multiplied by the 48 game factor (.585) for these results.

Goals	48GP
50	29
40	23
35	20
30	18
25	15
20	12
15	9
10	6

Phil Kessel leads the Leafs in goals and points in 2012-13, with something in the range of the typical 40-goal scorer, represented by the 23 goals.

First line teammate Joffrey Lupul pots 15 goals and both Mikhail Grabovski and newcomer James Van Riemsdyk end up with 13 goals.

The highest scoring defenseman is John-Michael Liles, with captain Dion Phaneuf not far behind.

RK	NAME	AGE	P	GP	G	A	PTS	PPG
1	Phil Kessel	24	RW	48	23	22	45	0.94
2	Joffrey Lupul	28	LW	44	15	20	35	0.80
3	Mikhail Grabovski	28	C	45	13	20	33	0.73
4	James van Riemsdyk	23	LW	44	13	17	30	0.68
5	Tyler Bozak	26	C	48	10	19	29	0.60
6	Clarke MacArthur	27	RW	47	11	17	28	0.60
7	Nikolai Kulemin	26	LW	46	12	15	27	0.59
8	John-Michael Liles	31	D	43	4	20	24	0.56
9	Dion Phaneuf	27	D	47	5	17	22	0.47
10	Nazem Kadri	21	RW	40	7	12	19	0.48
11	Jake Gardiner	22	D	35	4	14	18	0.51
12	Tim Connolly	32	RW	38	5	11	16	0.42
13	Matt Frattin	24	LW	39	9	6	15	0.38
14	Cody Franson	25	D	41	4	11	15	0.37
16	Jay McClement	29	C	48	5	8	13	0.27
17	Carl Gunnarsson	25	D	44	2	9	11	0.25
18	Matthew Lombardi	30	C	36	5	5	10	0.26
19	David Steckel	30	C	40	4	4	8	0.17
20	Mike Komisarek	30	D	38	1	5	6	0.16

The total is 152 goals, which equals 260 over an 82-game season. Post your own predictions below. We’ve also linked to the Puck Prospectus VUKOTA projections run back in October, but haven’t pro-rated them for the 48-game season: