Toronto getting a glimpse of its hockey future

Travis Yost

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It’s exceedingly rare that a team toiling at the bottom of the standings could find any reason for excitement while playing out the regular season string.

Maple Leafs fans – this season, anyway – are an exception to that rule.

While most teams and fan bases are fixated on the chase for the remaining playoff berths in the Eastern and Western Conferences, the city of Toronto is being treated to a glimpse of the future.

Toronto, who more or less threw away this season for the purposes of a long-term rebuild, invested much of their short-term strategy in veterans they could flip for meaningful future returns. It’s why we saw players like Daniel Winnik, James Reimer, Roman Polak, Nick Spaling, Shawn Matthias, and even Dion Phaneuf given large roles for the first half of the season. 

As soon as the trade deadline passed, the Leafs roster underwent full overhaul. A number of players from the Marlies – a team whose young talent have been obliterating all levels of competition in the American Hockey League – were called up to the NHL to give Mike Babcock and the rest of the organization their first taste at the development of these kids.

Early returns have been, in a word, promising.

At the team level, let’s first look at our three reliable performance metrics – goal rates, scoring chance rates, and shot rates. In most instances, if an NHL roster were filled by a bunch of AHL call-ups, we would expect these numbers to absolutely crater – doubly so in Toronto’s case since the incentive right now for the Leafs is to lose a swath of games and jockey for the best position in the lottery race. But that hasn’t been the case since the trade deadline.

It is completely fair to point out that this ragtag Marlies bunch has handled themselves admirably since the deadline. Their shot and scoring chance differentials are well above break-even – something that’s usually indicative of long-term success – and their goal rates have really rallied.

If you split out each metric by pre/post trade-deadline, you can see how things have materially changed in the 11 games since the Leafs gutted their roster:

Again, it’s worth repeating: it’s rare to see a bunch of AHL kids square up against the toughest level of competition and not look out of place, especially in the early going. This group, at least so far, looks exceptionally promising.

The biggest question I had when combing through the Leafs data was the obvious one: who in particular is driving the bus at 5-on-5? And how are they going about it?

I focused on Goal% and Corsi% differentials for the purposes of this to best capture recent performance. Any guesses on who our leaders are here? 

 A few things immediately caught my eye.

Frankie Corrado hasn’t gotten the right side of the bounces in the last stretch of games, but his team is crushing the shot differentials when he’s been out there. He’s predominantly played with the always-impressive Jake Gardiner this year (52 per cent of Corrado’s minutes are with the Minnesota native), which may be helping him along as he continues to push for a full-time job at the NHL level. Either way, pretty impressive value provided from a guy who was picked off of waivers at no expense.  

William Nylander hasn’t looked out of place either. He already has a trio of goals and his 5-on-5 numbers on both fronts are more than respectable for a 19-year-old rookie. It’s probably worth noting that he and Corrado share something in common here: they play a bunch of their minutes with Jake Gardiner (in Nylander’s case, about 44 per cent). I am sensing a trend here!

Bringing up the rear is Morgan Rielly. Again, another player with pretty respectable even-strength numbers in this window, but relative to his team’s output, they’re a bit under par. One of the things I am curious to see is what kind of role he gets as the team plays out the final games of the regular season. He’s played an awful lot of minutes with Matt Hunwick, and that pairing hasn’t really worked all that well this year. For a guy who is expected to become part of the future for this club – he’s up for a contract extension this summer – you wonder if the Leafs mix-and-match things a bit on the blueline to see if they can find a proper partner for him going forward.

THE TAKEAWAY

There have been countless Leafs seasons in recent history that ended in vapid fashion. This isn’t one of them. Despite their lowly position in the standings, there’s still reason to tune into the final games of the regular season if you want to get a taste of the future.