The concept of the Maple Leafs scoring their way out of trouble is nothing new. It is the philosophy that the Sheldon Keefe/Kyle Dubas era thrived on and at times made convincing cases for Jack Campbell and Ilya Samsonov being the answer in net. On the flip side of that, the Leafs weren’t exactly capable of scoring their way out of trouble in the playoffs and that’s a big part of why it is no longer the Sheldon Keefe/Kyle Dubas era.

Whether you agree with it or not, or if you are entertained by it or not, Craig Berube has opted for a lower event style of hockey. This has seen the Leafs’ goals for per game drop from 3.63 last season to 3.04 this year-to-date, but there has also been a decline from a 3.18 goals against per game to 2.85. The math on that doesn’t work out particularly well if you look at the goal difference, but the standings support the notion that Craig Berube should be left to cook.

The question was asked to me recently, which Leafs goaltenders are receiving the best run support from the team in front of them, to borrow the baseball phrase. The notion of run support is an interesting one for hockey where the entire league averages out to a large collection of 3-2 games, and variance is somewhat limited, but the theory that we were looking to test is that Joseph Woll isn’t receiving the same amount of offence as the other netminders. Very quickly the answer to that question became both yes and no, as well as there are a lot of caveats to this data.

Looking at the games regardless of results, Joseph Woll looks like he gets pretty decent offence out of the Leafs. With the exception of Matt Murray’s two games, Woll has averaged out the highest goals for and shots for of the Leafs’ top three netminders. He’s also had to face fewer shots on average that Anthony Stolarz while letting in more goals. You could argue that the myth has been busted but it is also interesting what happens when they win or lose.

When the Leafs win with Stolarz they are giving him better offence, Woll not so much. The shots tell a different story, but shots, especially in wins will be influenced by score effects and with every goaltender except for Hildeby you can see the Leafs tendency to have a higher shot count in losses as opposed to wins (chase the game much?).

The Leafs have scored four or more goals seven times for Joseph Woll this season (33% of his starts), while the Leafs have scored four or more seven times for Stolarz as well but in fewer games (41% of his starts). A small difference but with Joseph Woll quickly approaching his career high for games played and in uncharted territory when it comes to his workload, some additional support for the still youngish goaltender would be helpful.

Of course, there are a lot of caveats to the numbers. There is the quality of the Leafs lineup on any given night as well as the quality of the competition and factoring in their lineup that night. Throw score effects into the mix and placing blame solely on the offence in losses is a stretch.

There’s certainly a narrative that can be built from the data and the small sample with Matt Murray and Dennis Hildeby and you can say with the depth netminders the Leafs do know they need to score their way out of trouble, although you could equally point out that the AHL netminders aren’t facing the strongest teams and the Leafs scoring will reflect that. (It’s also worth noting that both Hildeby and Murray are primarily playing in half of a back-to-back as well and that likely results in a bit more wide open hockey than Berube typically has the Leafs playing.)

In fairness to the Leafs skaters, in 15 of Woll’s 21 starts (71%) they have given him three goals to work with and that is certainly giving him a good chance to win. Stolarz has only received three goals from the Leafs skaters in 56% of his games and he has only failed to deliver on the win once when receiving that. (Woll has lost twice when the Leafs have scored three or more, which still is a solid success rate.) Last season the Leafs scored three or more goals in 73% of their games, this season they’ve dropped to 62%. There is some ground that can be made up in regards to run support, and if the Leafs can bail out their goaltenders when they are either overworked or simply not playing at their best, it is probably the best course of action given the personnel they have.

Do right by Woll and Stolarz now so they can be rested and ready to bail out the Leafs in the playoffs.