Maple Leafs have succeeded at playing low-event hockey, but should that be their goal?

TORONTO — From 1970-73, the Chicago Blackhawks played 262 straight games without getting shut out, a streak not topped until the late 1980s by the Los Angeles Kings, who went two games further, in getting to 264. Those are the only two streaks longer than the 252-gamer the Toronto Maple Leafs strung together from 2021 through 2024, a streak that ended in Game 1 of this season.

It would be only 16 games before it happened again, this last time on Tuesday night against the Ottawa Senators, and it’d be a shock were it the last time this season.

To date, this iteration of the Maple Leafs is a bottom-half of the league offensive group, and that’s at least partly by design.

It’s been said that this team needs to be more “playoff built,” which typically means bigger and more physical, more defensive and less risky. The Leafs added a true defender is Chris Tanev, a straight-lines mucker in Steven Lorentz and a coach in Craig Berube who would encourage forwards to stop with the east-west shenanigans — where they hang on to the puck and try to create a chance — in favour of going north-south and safely dumping the puck. Their previous style of hockey, it’s been said, doesn’t work in playoffs.

Like keeping your car in its lane en route to its destination, though, drifting so far to one side that you hit the rumble strips isn’t fixed by jerking the wheel back across the lane to the other side.

The more important question is probably: Did the team really drift that far toward the offensive side of things? It feels a bit like the Leafs have accomplished their goal of being lower-risk, but in doing so, have become one of those middle-of-the-pack teams that hopes it gets enough breaks for things to work out. The Leafs’ success feels like it hinges on luck (shooting and save percentage) more than ever.

To mix metaphors, it feels like the manager and coach have given the patient an effective enough medication, but I’m not sure it’s for an illness they had.

In the 2023-24 playoffs, the Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers finished sixth in goals against per game. The Leafs finished better than the Panthers by a breath in that category. But where they weren’t even close was in offence, where they scored the fewest goals per game of all the 16 playoff teams.

One thing I’ve noticed with some consistency when poking through post-game numbers this season is that, even when the Leafs win, the opposing team seems to have more “puck in offensive zone time” than them, and same with “OZ possession time.” (Similar stats, but the latter specifies when the offensive team physically has it in the offensive zone.) It turns out the Leafs are 23rd in “puck in OZ time,” while sitting 18th in “OZ possession time.”

That could be related to how often they dump the puck this season.

At five-on-five, the Leafs dump it in on 58.8 per cent of their zone entries, a rate exceeded by only three teams in the league (one of those is Florida, whose personnel is arguably better suited for it). Last season, they were closer to 52 per cent, a much more middle-of-the-pack average.

That’s just one stylistic change for this team though, while the biggest one is probably its lack of rush play. Now, that lack of rushes goes both ways, but this Leafs team used to at least be partially defined by its speed up the rink. The Leafs used to send the weak-side winger flying on breakouts to push the opposing D back, and when those opposing D didn’t pull back to keep an eye on them (or if the Leafs got a bounce), a chance would ensue.

This season, the Leafs are a staggering 31st in the NHL in odd-man rushes. As a result, they’re 29th in rush chances a category where they finished seventh the previous season.

Now, as I mentioned, this version of the Leafs is undeniably better than last year’s in terms of eliminating opportunities against, so some of this is by design. While they may be bottom of the pack in rushes for, they’re 11th in rushes against, but fourth in rush chances against, allowing just 0.1 more per game than they get (their D defend them quite well).

So, if they’re 29th in rush chances for, and fourth in rush chances against, that means there’s next to no rushing hockey in their games, which you may have noticed can be slightly less scintillating.

Not that anyone cares if they win more, an outcome that remains to be seen.

And, so, you’ve got this offensively talented team playing this slogging, grind it out game, and sure enough, that has in fact translated to far better defensive numbers from last season.

Here’s a look at the defensive categories where they’ve seen the most positive improvement, from the SportLogiq numbers.

This is a list of substantial gains, and it’s visible on a nightly basis. The concern is that they’ve been this good defensively very recently: in 2022-23, their defensive numbers were very similar to this season, but again, that year they couldn’t score, and they got eliminated with relative ease by Florida.

Over the past four seasons, as noted by The Athletic‘s Jonas Siegal, the Leafs have been the highest-scoring team at five-on-five across the NHL. Last year, they were yet again first in the NHL at five-on-five scoring. Over the past five games (with Auston Matthews out for four of them), the team has scored zero goals at five-on-five.

The drop from “NHL’s best” to “can’t do it” feels a bit like whiplash.

The goals aren’t ever going to come in meaningful volume from David Kampf or Steven Lorentz or Ryan Reaves or Pontus Holmberg or, hell, even Max Domi at this point. Calle Jarnkrok once provided some depth goals, but it’s uncertain when he may return and in what form. The team is not offensively loaded in the bottom six, particularly with Bobby McMann and Nick Robertson not taking an offensive step this season, though I think it’s fair to wonder whether this new playing style is part of the reason they haven’t.

And so here’s the greatest question this all brings up: as it becomes evident that this team is going to struggle to score enough, and the coach has asked his players to change the way they play, is he also able to change the way he coaches, some?

I’ve spoken to numerous coaches who say they have a way they prefer their team to play, but you have to coach to your roster, not your desires.

The numbers bear out that the players have bought in to dumping the puck, not flying the zone without it, and defending first as a priority. And in games like Tuesday night against Ottawa, particularly with Matthews out, when they get down in the game, it feels all but hopeless. The same team that came back from a 5-0 deficit in the third period of a game last season never felt all that close to pushing back into the game after giving up the early first goal.

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So, will Berube feel that there’s been some course overcorrection from this group, look at his roster that’s laden with coincidentally underachieving offensive players, and tweak something systemic? Maybe by sending a player from the D-zone on a breakout more often, or encouraging more possession over dump-ins when trailing in games?

Save for today’s Winnipeg Jets, few teams ever have every part of their game going at the same time, and the Leafs are no different there. We knew this team would rely heavily on its Core Four forwards to produce, not all of this is shocking. But “let the Core Four figure the scoring out” has proved a busted plan, even when the rest of the roster was more free to take chances.

The team has proven it can play a lower-event brand of hockey, and that’s fine. But it feels like the Leafs are starting to hear some rumble strips under the car on the other side of the road, and so it’s probably time to gently pull the wheel back in a more offensive direction.

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