Is Toronto Falling Into The Same Trap As Last Year?

[Warden of the North]

Who knows? Ill get back to you in April

 

[ARoggy94]

2014-2015 goal differential : +14
2013-2014 goal differential : +1

One of the most important stats when analyzing a team midway through a season.

 

[C77]

The Leafs are generally an exciting team to watch. Sometimes they win big, sometimes they lose big.

I think people make too much of the shot totals with the Leafs. Like the Washington game that was in Toronto, the Leafs went up early and scored often...when you have a top line with Kessel + JVR you don't necessarily need as many scoring chances to win, and if you have the lead, then it usually happens to get outshot.

Enjoy it Leafs fans!

 

[geometrically*]

They will collapse like they usually do. Probably finish 9th or 10th in the east.

 

[SprDaVE]

They will collapse like they usually do. Probably finish 9th or 10th in the east.

We're prepared.

We have our bandwagon jumping boots close by, our salty tears ready to go and our soul is all ready broken if a million pieces...

...Bring it on.

 

[MastuhNinks]

That game last night was definitely reminiscent of the 2013-14 Leafs but doesn't really represent their play as a whole.

The Leafs have been playing legitimately good hockey for most of this stretch. They're also probably more likely to win a game where the other team completely controls the flow of play because they have a lot of offensive skill and high-percentage scorers in the line-up and they have good goaltending. The Calgary game is a good example. They didn't get lucky there (as they probably did last night), they had a better goalie and a more skilled lineup. That doesn't mean they can play like that every night and expect to be a good team, but hey I'll take the 2 points.

 

[Arizonan God]

Ehh. Vancouver and Detroit are both very offensivley potent teams and last night they where coming off a tough home game win against Calgary. These are the types of games that I expect to be outplayed in.

If it keeps up however, against weaker competition, then it will start to worry me.

 

[The Podium]

I still can't believe Canucks fans think they were dominant the entire game Carlyle has a stupid coaching tactic that when there up they sit back. I can see the reason for it but the Leafs play significantly worse when they lay back and that's why Vancouver controlled the game after it was 4-0 (similar to game 7 in Boston but Nucks didn't burn them), Toronto just let up. Detroit game last night was admittedly the third worst game they played all year that shouldn't be used as an example....

 

[NyQuil]

Vancouver dominated the entire road trip against the Eastern teams.

Just look at their record.

 

[dukeofjive]

Man reimer played like a god yesterday, oh and bernier has really been in the zone for the past couple of games.

I wouldn't mind seeing them make the playoffs this year, it would make alot of my buddies happy.

 

[Mighty Chin]

I still can't believe Canucks fans think they were dominant the entire game Carlyle has a stupid coaching tactic that when there up they sit back. I can see the reason for it but the Leafs play significantly worse when they lay back and that's why Vancouver controlled the game after it was 4-0 (similar to game 7 in Boston but Nucks didn't burn them), Toronto just let up. Detroit game last night was admittedly the third worst game they played all year that shouldn't be used as an example....

I can't believe Leafs fans don't understand that an entire game is 60 minutes.

 

[SprDaVE]

I can't believe Leafs fans don't understand that an entire game is 60 minutes.

Is it really?

 

[The Podium]

I can't believe Leafs fans don't understand that an entire game is 60 minutes.

Up 4-0, likely enough to win, clog the neutral and defensive zone to make it difficult for the other team to score.

 

[madmike77]

Not sure it's a "trap". They were outplayed 3 games in a row, but won because they had hot goaltending. It happens.

But yes they'll need to play better if they want to avoid what happened last year.

 

[Derrty]

Obviously; the one game sample size makes it perfectly clear to me.

 

[Lurked4Yearz]

It's amazing what results from a league with such parity.

 

[Shwaguy*]

Were getting out corsi'd a bit yeah but not nearly as bad.


The team is more reminiscent of the 12-13 team than the 13-14 team

As in we play pretty well, get a good lead. Then sit on our ***** and get outshot once we've secured that lead, resulting in the big shot differential, eg, the bad shot totals are coming as a product of Carlyle's System as opposed to last year where we were just flat out BAD.


But really it's hard to tell, as a Leaf fan the only thing you can do is have cautious optimism.

 

[Blufreezy]

You can really tell who here base their opinions of sportsnet article headlines.

 

[Bob b smith]

It's amazing what results from a league with such parity.

Tell that to Edmonton.

 

[madmike77]

Of the three recent games, the only one where they were badly outplayed was last night's.

The Vancouver game is hard to gauge because Miller was so awful and the score was bad early.

The Flames game was a bit odd - Flames had the edge in the 1st, Toronto dominated the second, then the Flames dominated the 3rd. Overall it was a close game that could have gone either way. The Leafs weren't dramatically outplayed.

I think overall the Leafs are better than last year - not incredibly better, but improved. They should be in the playoff picture.

 

[SprDaVE]

Of the three recent games, the only one where they were badly outplayed was last night's.

The Vancouver game is hard to gauge because Miller was so awful and the score was bad early.

The Flames game was a bit odd - Flames had the edge in the 1st, Toronto dominated the second, then the Flames dominated the 3rd. Overall it was a close game that could have gone either way. The Leafs weren't dramatically outplayed.

I think overall the Leafs are better than last year - not incredibly better, but improved. They should be in the playoff picture.

This isn't dramatic enough and it makes too much sense.

I will go ahead and disregard it.

 

[castle]

http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com or the new version http://www.puckalytics.com/teamstats.html

nice site to look at team stats, as they can be calculated according to the situation

Toronto is way up at 13th now for 5v5 Close (i.e., the game situation is one where either team has a realistic chance to win) Goal For %, an indication that the team has been winning,

but the advanced stats people will point to the Corsi For % (26th) and Fenwick For % (26th) and PDO (5th) all as reasons for concern.

 

[MastuhNinks]

http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com or the new version http://www.puckalytics.com/teamstats.html

nice site to look at team stats, as they can be calculated according to the situation

Toronto is way up at 13th now for 5v5 Close (i.e., the game situation is one where either team has a realistic chance to win) Goal For %, an indication that the team has been winning,

but the advanced stats people will point to the Corsi For % (26th) and Fenwick For % (26th) and PDO (5th) all as reasons for concern.

Not sure how long the Leafs have to have a high PDO for for the 'analytics community' to admit that it's a highly flawed stat. Highest PDO in 2012-13, 4th in 2013-14 and 3rd so far in 2014-15. It's not luck when a team has good goaltending and high-percentage scorers on their team and they have a high PDO for ~160 games.

 

[castle]

yeah, I've never really bought into the PDO argument. I mean, I guess if both the shot percentage and save percentage are ridiculous, you could expect some falloff. Then again, if goalies falter even a little, or the puck luck dries up, a team game based on low possession can fall off the rails pretty quickly.

 

[HarrisonFord]

Nope, they are a better team than last year.

2013-2014:
SF/G: 27.9
SA/G: 35.9
Differential: -8 shots per game

2014-2015:
SF/G: 30.0
SA/G: 33.6
Differntial: -3.6 shots per game

That's a pretty big improvement over last year.