Leafs banking points despite chasing games

Travis Yost

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The Toronto Maple Leafs have enough talent to compete for a Stanley Cup. But time and time again, the team has given us reason to pause. Coaching staff concerns, early playoff exits, untimely goaltending performances – you name it, the Maple Leafs have covered it over the past few seasons.

Toronto once again entered the regular season with one of the more formidable lineups in all of hockey. But a curiously slow start across the board has clouded expectations. Over the first month of the season, the Maple Leafs are a respectable 7-4-1 (a 102.5-point pace), super-charged by a recent five-game winning streak.

But, like most fans, understanding exactly how good this team might be has proven rather trying.

On the positive side of the ledger, the Maple Leafs are sixth in expected goals at even strength – over such small samples of data, that may be the most important north star we have. But they can’t buy a goal (their 7.7 per cent shooting is just 25^th in the league), and despite a phenomenal start by Jack Campbell in net, they carry a +0 goal differential.

If I were a betting man, I’d say this is a rather bullish outlook for the Maple Leafs – they are still dominating games territorially, and this lineup, most of which we have watched play together for years now, historically converts on more than 10 per cent of its shots. Said another way, a shooting percentage rebound to the upside seems quite probable over the next few weeks.

There is another number that stands out to me though this season, and it’s the percentage of minutes in which the Maple Leafs have led games. Toronto has been one of the better regular-season teams by points percentage in recent years, and, not surprisingly, it’s the result of leading in most games they play.

If we look at 2017-19 (putting aside the COVID-19 season for a moment) season, we note two things:

- Predictably, a very strong correlation between the percentage of game minutes led versus points accumulated across the league.

- Toronto leading in about 35 per cent of game minutes (versus trailing in about 29 per cent of game minutes).

What do we know about the league’s best teams? Even in a volatile sport where random chance has a much bigger effect on single-game outcomes, great teams still manifest the same way bad teams do over time.

Great teams tend to score early, they score often, they drive big goal differentials, and they win a higher percentage of games in regulation. Consequently, they lead in most of these games.

(As an aside, this is another reason we use adjustments to control for score effects when analyzing team shot shares or expected goal rates; the reality is some teams are frequently nursing a lead, other teams are frequently chasing a deficit, and it does have an impact on games.)

Bringing this to the current regular season, it’s noticeable that Toronto hasn’t quite been the same team over the first month of the season. Some of this is the result of early season blowouts where Toronto was chasing the game all night, as they were against the Pittsburgh Penguins and Carolina Hurricanes. But ultimately Toronto has led in just 28 per cent of minutes played this season, which is 22^nd in the NHL, and discernibly down from years past.

If we regress the percentage of minutes each team has led in games against an expected points pace, we see that Toronto’s record (7-4-1) may be a bit flattering for how they have played. Let’s see how they stack against the rest of the league:

Only four teams have seen a friendlier point accumulation this season relative to the percentage of minutes they have led in games. Knowing Toronto has led in just 28 per cent of those minutes, we would expect them to have about four points less than their 7-4-1 record (15 points) would indicate. Or said another way: we would expect them to have a record around 6-7-0, which would also be in line with their goal differential.

This exercise is retroactive more than it is forward looking – again, the biggest outlier data point that exists with the Maple Leafs is a uniquely low shooting percentage and considering the top-end scoring talent on this roster, we would expect that trend to move to the upside going forward.

But it’s also fair to say the Maple Leafs are a bit on the lucky side to have seven wins in 12 games considering the way they have played.

Oh, and apologies to their provincial rival in Ottawa. Despite leading in 32 per cent of the minutes they have played, the Senators have just seven points (3-7-1) on the season. So it goes!

Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Hockey Reference