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Leafs Rookies Dominating at the All Star Break

By Jeff Veillette

Jan 29, 2017, 16:31 ESTUpdated:

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Photo Credit: Tom Szczerbowski/USA TODAY SPORTS

We all know the Toronto Maple Leafs’ rookies are killing it. We’ve been singing the praises of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Nikita Zaitsev, Connor Brown, Zach Hyman, Nikita Soshnikov, and Frederik Gauthier throughout the year, but with the All-Star Break giving us a break from tracked hockey, I decided to take a look at where this group of eight lands compared to other rookie squads across the league.

Individuals

Pts Rk	Player	YR	TEAM	POS	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PTS/G
2	Auston Matthews	2016-17	TOR	C	47	23	16	39	2	10	0.83
3	Mitchell Marner	2016-17	TOR	C	47	11	28	39	-5	26	0.83
4	William Nylander	2016-17	TOR	C	46	10	21	31	-2	22	0.67
11	Connor Brown	2016-17	TOR	R	47	11	10	21	7	6	0.45
12	Zach Hyman	2016-17	TOR	C	47	7	14	21	4	22	0.45
16	Nikita Zaitsev	2016-17	TOR	D	47	1	19	20	-3	22	0.43
66	Nikita Soshnikov	2016-17	TOR	R	37	2	3	5	1	6	0.14
86	Frederik Gauthier	2016-17	TOR	C	17	2	1	3	3	21	0.18

While Patrik Laine continues to have the lead rookie lead in points and points per game, the Leafs rookies as individuals are absolutely crushing it. All eight of them are in the top 90 in rookie scoring, six of them are in the top twenty, and the big three are 2-3-4 in rookie scoring despite playing on three separate lines. Nikita Zaitsev is in the top twenty, despite being a defenceman on a line mostly used to shut down tough competition (and still only trails Zach Werenski and Ivan Provorov in rookie scoring as a defenceman). At this point, it seems that the biggest threat to a Leafs player winning the Calder Trophy is the fact that their abundance of rookies might cause a vote split.

As A Team

Rk	TEAM	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PTS/G
1	Toronto Maple Leafs	335	67	112	179	7	135	0.53
2	Carolina Hurricanes	82	17	21	38	-12	10	0.46
3	Colorado Avalanche	46	8	13	21	-18	16	0.46
4	Calgary Flames	98	10	30	40	5	150	0.41
5	Detroit Red Wings	112	14	31	45	7	64	0.4
6	New York Rangers	137	19	36	55	-3	47	0.4
7	Winnipeg Jets	157	27	33	60	-2	68	0.38
8	Pittsburgh Penguins	55	9	11	20	-2	30	0.36
9	Philadelphia Flyers	145	15	35	50	-10	65	0.34
10	San Jose Sharks	65	11	11	22	8	20	0.34
11	Columbus Blue Jackets	149	17	33	50	24	43	0.34
12	New York Islanders	98	10	21	31	8	37	0.32
13	Edmonton Oilers	128	14	24	38	14	39	0.3
14	Chicago Blackhawks	201	28	30	58	18	54	0.29
15	Montreal Canadiens	109	15	16	31	7	38	0.28
16	Dallas Stars	155	17	26	43	-3	64	0.28
17	Arizona Coyotes	208	24	31	55	-31	116	0.26
18	New Jersey Devils	134	18	17	35	-24	77	0.26
19	Anaheim Ducks	135	10	23	33	-3	80	0.24
20	Tampa Bay Lightning	103	4	20	24	-18	35	0.23
21	Nashville Predators	56	7	5	12	2	14	0.21
22	Florida Panthers	154	14	16	30	-15	41	0.19
23	Los Angeles Kings	83	2	14	16	13	50	0.19
24	Boston Bruins	154	10	19	29	-14	62	0.19
25	Vancouver Canucks	133	3	21	24	-5	88	0.18
26	Minnesota Wild	77	6	5	11	4	39	0.14
27	Buffalo Sabres	74	7	2	9	-3	27	0.12
28	Washington Capitals	35	1	3	4	1	6	0.11
29	Ottawa Senators	33	0	3	3	-6	4	0.09
30	St. Louis Blues	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

TSN and Sportsnet have made reference to the combined scoring race a few times in their broadcast, but nobody’s really touched on it on here, or expanded it to the full list of 30 teams. So I added every skater up this season to see where very team stood.

Toronto, unsurprisingly, is at the top of the point list. In fact, they’re just one point away from tripling the second-ranked Winnipeg Jets, who are getting 2/3 of their rookie contributions from Laine. To put this all in perspective…

The fourth-line pair of Nikita Soshnikov and Frederik Gauthier are significantly dragging down Toronto’s rookie points per game, likely as a byproduct of their role. If you stick to the Top 6, Toronto’s combined rookie Points/Game goes up to 0.61. Put another way: Toronto’s top six rookies are averaging a 50 point pace.
Interestingly, while Soshnikov and Gauthier are a drag, if they were their own team, they’d still finish ahead of the bottom five (St. Louis, Ottawa, Washington, Buffalo, Minnesota) in rookie points per game.
If you pull the Top 3 out of the sample as well and make it just Hyman, Brown, and Zaitsev, Toronto would still rank 9th in Rookie Games Played and 4th in Rookie Points. Granted, they’d probably not score as much without the big three surrounding them.
In fact, if you only had any combination of two of Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Brown, Hyman, and Zaitsev, the Leafs would still stay out of the Bottom 10 in Rookie Games Played, and anywhere between 10th and 1st in Rookie Scoring.

What to make of this all

The Leafs are actually good, and the rookies are no small part of that. Toronto has attempted one of the biggest injections of unproven youth in the history of the sport at this level, and not only has it worked, they’ve become the nucleus of a rapidly rising team. It’s been fun to watch, and we’ve all been aware of how special this project has been since it started, but when you lay it all out like this, it’s simply jaw dropping.

Hopefully, this won’t be a one-and-done thing, and Toronto will continue to trust quality young players with additional responsibility as long as they’ve got them in the cupboards.