Hmm not sure. Ill break it down to 4 different sections and see if that tells us anything.
1. Goals against: main job of defense is to prevent goals.
2. Shots against. Less shots equal less chance of goals against.
3. Shot maps: from where on the ice are shots allowed? This can give a good picture of defensive ability, generally you would want the shots allowed to be mainly far from and to the perimeters of the goal.
4. Goalies, last line of defense and most important defensive player of the ice.
Section 1: Goals against
Toronto 202
Edmonton 227
Clear advantage going to toronto, the whole point of defense is to let in less goals in this simplified form.
Section 2: Shots against (per game)
Toronto 34.1
Edmonton 32.0
Advantage edmonton, less shots against means less chance for a goal scored against.
Section 3: Shot maps
Toronto
5v5
Pk
------------------------------------------------------------
Edmonton
5v5
Pk
Clear advantage: toronto. Leafs do let up alot of shots from the slot but other than than that most of the shots allowed are far from goal. Meanwhile edmonton defense seem to be cut and most shots are taken in prime position near the goal.
Section 4: Goalies
Toronto: Andersen: 58gp 33w 1955 SA .919% 2.79 GAA
Edmonton: Talbot: 57gp 26w 1736 SA .908 2.98 GAA
Advantage: Toronto slight advantage . My reasoning here is that yes andersen easily post better numbers with higher amount of shots faces, but... his team infront of him seems to be alot better at keeping the puck further from him so i would presume he is facing alot less high quality shots than talbot. Otherwise i would have put a much bigger advantage.
Conclusion
Torontos defense is handily better in my opinion judging from these sections. 2 negatives are the high amount of shots (which might not even be that negative as a miss is also a opportunity to gain possesion) and the high amount of shots in the high slot. Other than that it looks solid, especially conparing to edmonton.
Thanks for you time.
