Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube needs more from his team.
What was supposed to be an exhilarating start to the season — with fresh new faces coming in and old ones exiting — has turned into something many might not have expected. As the Maple Leafs stand here in late November, they find themselves in the basement of the Eastern Conference.
With how things are going, it doesn’t feel like they’ll get out of the hole.
“Everybody’s got to grind right now,” a stark Berube said on Monday afternoon.
Toronto has lost seven of its last eight games. And they have numerous injuries, at forward, defense, and the goaltending position. All the while, they’re five points out of a wild-card playoff spot, which is likely the only positive from this most recent stretch.
“Just not good enough,” added a frustrated Simon Benoit.
But is the Maple Leafs’ season going as poorly as many think it is?
I took a look at their numbers in NHL Edge, which tracks each team’s game, from shot and skating speed to zone time and where most of their shots are fired from.
Let’s begin with zone time.
At even strength, Toronto spends 41.9 percent of the time in their own zone, which is the 27th-worst in the NHL. The Maple Leafs spend 18.7 percent of their time in the neutral zone (11th) and 39.4 percent in the offensive end (29th).
They’re below the NHL average of 40.7 percent in the offensive zone. The Carolina Hurricanes hold the top spot for offensive zone time at even strength with 46.2 percent.
When it comes to shots on goal, Toronto is fifth in high-danger shots (188), 23rd in mid-range shots (168), and 17th in long-range shots (125). They’re also below the league average when it comes to shooting the puck, with 611 shots through 22 games.
The one positive amidst all the negatives this season has been the Maple Leafs’ ability to find the back of the net. Toronto ranks fourth (tied with the Boston Bruins) in goals-for with 74. Forty-one of them are high-danger goals (they rank fourth in that category, too), 21 have come via mid-range, and the other six come from long-range.
Toronto is operating at a shooting percentage of 12.1 percent this season, after going 11.6 percent last season. The league’s average shooting percentage this year is 10.8 percent, meaning we may see a bit of a dip from the Maple Leafs at some point.
Over the summer, they added a few bigger players to the forward group. Tie that together with an aging defense core, and it’s expected that the Maple Leafs would be a slower team entering this year.
And it appears that way through 22 games.
Despite ranking 16th with 24 speed bursts at 35 km/h or faster, Toronto sits 23rd in 32-35 km/h bursts (410) and 25th in 29-32 km/h bursts (1,988).
Their fastest speed burst this season belongs to William Nylander, who clocked in at 37.78 km/h in overtime against the Seattle Kraken on Oct. 18. Benoit ranks second with a 36.69 km/h burst on Oct. 24 vs. the Buffalo Sabres.
The quickest player last season was Jake McCabe, who recorded a 38.10 km/h burst in the season opener against the Montreal Canadiens.
All in all, there isn’t anything shocking about these numbers from NHL Edge. The Maple Leafs are a high-scoring offense that spends more time in their own zone than most teams in the league.
What they need is better defense, from everyone. In turn, that should help them keep the puck out of their own net and win some games. The defense is the key area Berube wants to continue focusing on, entering arguably the most crucial stretch of games yet.
“I think it’s something we’ve been banging away at for a bit here, and we’ve got to keep banging away at it,” the head coach said on Monday.
“I mean, we got a lot of injured guys out, I get that, and guys that put the puck in the net, right? But at the same time, we prided ourselves on defense last year, checking, and we got to get back to that.”
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