Ice Tilt: How Maple Leafs have changed approach in 2024-25
The Toronto Maple Leafs previously valued puck control, but under Craig Berube the team has undergone a stylistic change. Justin Bourne uses ‘Ice Tilt’ to show how Toronto’s plans have changed, and what it means for Thursday’s game in New York, and for their playoff outlook.
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If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, a quick primer on just what the metric from the NHL and AWS known as “Ice Tilt” is: It uses NHL EDGE tech in the players’ jerseys to track which team has the territorial advantage. In a sense, it’s quantifying the oft-used-but-rarely-defined term “momentum.”
You’re certainly familiar with variations of the phrase “The ice has been heavily tilted in Team X’s favour,” and without getting too into the nitty gritty of how it’s calculated (more on that here if you’re interested), we can see which teams are best at doing it. It helps that Ice Tilt tracks the bodies of each player, so you can really gauge a team’s Time with Tilt in any game, or over the course of the season. It allows us to measure the amount of pressure, as opposed to just telling us where the puck has been.
On Thursday night the Toronto Maple Leafs are in New York to take on the Rangers, and Ice Tilt reveals something that those two giant, very attentive fanbases already know: this year ain’t last year. In 2023-24 the Rangers won the Presidents’ Trophy, and while the Leafs didn’t pile up a ton more points a year ago, they certainly controlled their games more and relied on goaltending a lot less.
To see how things have changed, below is where the two teams finished last season in terms of Ice Tilt. You probably expected the Rangers to have been better than mid-pack, but “mid-pack plus elite goaltending” was apparently worth a ton of standings points.
The Leafs were outside of the top five by just a few spots. If you look closely at the other teams, you can see the relationships between Ice Tilt and success. Please note:
• Stanley Cup champion Florida ranked third in “Time with Tilt” per game.
• The Western Conference champion Oilers ranked second.
• Nine of the top 10 teams in the league had more than 30 minutes of “Time with Tilt” per game. As in, they controlled the play.
• Eleven of the 16 playoff teams controlled the Time with Tilt. Of the five playoff teams that were on the wrong end of the Tilt, only one advanced past Round 1, and none advanced past Round 2.
And so, I bring you the obvious – controlling play is good – with the concerning, for fans of the Leafs and Rangers. Below is this season’s “Time with Tilt” graph. Which, y’know … woof.
For the Leafs, part of this is a conscious, stylistic change. They used to take great pride in hanging on to the puck, dictating the play, and trying to take the offence to their opponent. And in fact, that was part of their defensive strategy in the past – control the puck more.
It didn’t work when their opponents were also very good at the same thing in the playoffs.
This year, under Craig Berube, they’ve wanted to be a much more north-south team, to chip pucks past potential turnover trouble, and so they allow one fewer high danger chance against per game. Sportlogiq data shows they’ve gone from 18th to eighth in rushes against, and they’re getting great goaltending too.
Combine that with another improvement – Toronto is up to fifth in the NHL in creating forecheck chances, which means they still get high danger looks without a ton of possession – and you can at least squint to see how the numbers may look worse than how the strategy plays out.
Whether that style pans out in the playoffs against more accomplished teams like Florida and Tampa Bay remains to be seen. But as noted, Toronto’s previous strategy wasn’t working, so perhaps trying something new will yield different results.
The good news is, the Leafs are coming off a game on Monday against Calgary where they jumped all over the Flames out of the gates, and their dump and chase resulted in a lot of Time with Tilt. Against Colorado the first period didn’t go quite as well, but that’s why the Rangers are a great draw for the Leafs on Thursday. On the season, in just the first period, the Rangers have been a bottom-10 Time with Tilt team.
The Leafs haven’t exactly been a lightning bolt out of the starting gates either, but they have been marginally better than New York. A soft opening, during a tough piece of the schedule coming off a dynamite Avs team, should be extremely welcoming for Toronto to try and find their footing.
Another output that Ice Tilt provides is “time with significant tilt,” which is to say that the play isn’t just on the right side of the centre red line, but it’s pushed much closer to the opposing team’s net — all the way inside the opposition’s D-zone for consecutive minutes (on average).
It doesn’t happen a ton per game, given how crowded the bodies and puck would have to be into one zone, so the best teams usually only get a minute or so per game of “significant tilt.” The Leafs look better by this metric, getting into the top half of the league with 0:54 seconds per period.
You can learn two things from the “good” half of this graph. First is that there aren’t many poor teams in there, so the metric is clearly telling us something (good teams get more significant Tilt). And the second is probably that if you trail enough, and you’re chasing games while the other team plays a prevent defence, you’re going to rack up some free “significant tilt” time.
The ability to flip the switch and pressure opponents (even when they sit back) implies that maybe Nashville and Pittsburgh aren’t as bad as they’re perceived, which tracks with the talent on their rosters. (“Chasing games” could, of course, also explain the Leafs being higher up here too.)
You’ll notice the Capitals and Kings way towards the bottom. Maybe they’re always protecting leads, maybe they’re not as dominant as their records imply. Choose your own adventure.
In the end, Ice Tilt confirms that the Leafs play a lot differently than last season, and as a result, put more pressure on their defending. As we get towards the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, we’ll check back in with Ice Tilt to see if their trade deadline additions and a few other lineup tweaks have helped them control the play more, or if we can expect them to purely lean on their goalies, shot-blocking, and hanging on for dear life in Round 1.
