They count high, mid and low danger.
Keep in mind the definition of high danger. It’s typically a shot taken from right in front of the net, the light green area. It could also come from the pink area if it was a shot then a rebound.
The fact we do ok with HDSA could also be related to Freddy’s play in that he doesn’t give up the rebounds. Sorry zeke but the narrative may be alive and well.
Medium danger shots are all in the pink area.
Leafs are the worst team in the league for MDSA (Medium Danger Shots Against) opportunities given up.
Suggests we really do need to focus on D. Or keeping the offense stoked and Freddy healthy.
Either way, it’s a weakness.
High Danger shot is not based on the location of the shot attempt but rather the value of the scoring chance.
From Naturalstattrick:
"Each shot attempt (Corsi) taken in the offensive zone is assigned a value based on the area of the zone in which it was recorded. Attempts made from the attacking team's neutral or defensive zones are excluded.
Attempts from the yellow areas are assigned a value of 1, attempts from the red areas are assigned a value of 2, and attempts in the green area are assigned a value of 3.
Add 1 to this value if the attempt is considered a rush shot or a rebound. A rebound is any attempt made within 3 seconds of another blocked, missed or saved attempt without a stoppage in play in between. A rush shot is any attempt within 4 seconds of
any event in the neutral or defensive zone without a stoppage in play in between (originally defined by David Johnson on the now-offline Hockey Analysis, and modified to 4 seconds by War-on-Ice).
Decrease this value by 1 if it was a blocked shot.
Any attempt with a score of 2 or higher is considered a scoring chance."
Based on this knowledge, let's see where Toronto ranks in each type of scoring chance:
Toronto is ranked 8th in the league with 7.52 High Danger Shots Against/60, tied with TBL at number 7
Toronto is ranked 29th in the league with 9.06 Medium Danger Shots Against/60, TBL is 30th with 9.19
Toronto is ranked 29th in the league with 14.38 Low Danger Shots Against/60, TBL is 6th with 11.62
What this means is that Toronto gives up a lot Low Danger Scoring Chances which has a value of 1 or less as well as Medium Danger Scoring Chances which has a value of exactly 2.
If we want to simplify even further, we can look at Scoring Chances Shots Against/60 which only includes Scoring Chances with a value of 2 or more
Toronto is 21st in the league with 16.58 SCSA/60, TBL is 24th with 16.71 SCSA/60.
But wait, there's more!
Toronto is ranked 10th with a 97.72 Low Danger Save%
Toronto is ranked 5th with a 93.84 Medium Danger Save%
Toronto is ranked 19th with a 82.53 High Danger Save%
So Toronto actually has slightly better than average goal tending to bail them out of prime scoring chances against while relying on some superb goal tending in non-prime scoring chances.
All of this to say that I still think there is a need to improve the defense but to say they are a tire fire is kind of misleading. They lack the ability to move the puck cleanly out of the D zone (Rielly is perfecting this with each game) and they have an inability to stop a cycle in their zone..