Berube has brought defensive balance to Maple Leafs
Published
There are few things less comfortable for an organization than losing a superstar player to injury.
So, you can imagine the trepidation the Toronto Maple Leafs organization felt when Auston Matthews was pulled from the lineup a month ago with an upper-body injury, ultimately shelving him for nearly the entirety of the November schedule.
Winning in the National Hockey League is hard enough; doing so without perhaps the second-best player in the world in a bit of a top-heavy lineup is daunting. Head coach Craig Berube still had plenty of offensive weaponry at his disposal to compete in an otherwise middling Atlantic Division, but it’s fair to say expectations were not high through the November stretch.
And yet the Maple Leafs pulled off something rather remarkable. Yes, the team played to a staggering 116-point pace in the month of November, but what’s more intriguing how they did it.
Over the entirety of the Matthews era, there have been two truisms in the regular season: Toronto’s top-six forwards are going to score at will and buoy the team in the standings, and the defensive play (inclusive of the goaltending) is going to give Leafs fans intermittent heartburn with fleeting success.
Which brings me to a staggering statistic: no team in the NHL conceded fewer goals at even strength in November than the Maple Leafs. In all situations, Toronto finished second in goals conceded (just 2.2 goals against per 60 minutes played), missing the top spot by mere rounding error to the Minnesota Wild.
If you’re a Maple Leafs fan, this is a continuation of what we saw in October and another ringing endorsement of Berube. Real defensive integrity through improved structural play doesn’t appear to be a mission statement, but rather part of the team’s new reality.
Look how significant this year’s improvement at even strength has been relative to the rest of the Matthews era – and note how expected goal rates have fallen in line with real goals (via Evolving Hockey):
Yost 1 - Dec. 2
For eight seasons, the Maple Leafs were reliably giving up about 2.5 goals per 60 minutes played at even strength, right around league average. This season, they have cut that number down by a third, and through 23 games carry the league’s second-best defensive results (again trailing just Minnesota). Such a dramatic trimming of the goals-against ledger has increased the value of every Toronto goal scored in terms of win probability, or said another way, has taken tremendous burden off the offence to win games.
Now, Toronto’s defence is starting to string wins together.
Playing within structure, forcing opposing attackers to the outside, clean zone transitions from the defensive third — you see it nightly from this Maple Leafs team right now. And it’s not just unburdening the lineup from typical defensive pressure, it’s also making the job of Toronto’s goaltending tandem much easier these days.
That goaltending tandem that was a major question mark coming into the season, it should be noted. Anthony Stolarz has been a steady journeyman most of his career; 26-year-old Joseph Woll showed promise early in his career, but that was on a basis of 36 games.
But they both deserve credit for their play so far this season. With improved structure in front, Maple Leafs goaltenders are stopping 93.7 per cent of shots faced at even strength through two months of the season – a staggering number, and considerably outperforming the rest of the league:
Yost 2
Whether or not this new play style can stand the test of quality opponents come playoff time remains to be seen. But if Leafs fans were hopeful of a new era in Toronto with a more balanced play style, they are getting a healthy serving of it in the regular season.
And with Matthews having returned to the lineup, December looks very promising.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey