New to the sport

[Damisoph]

You're getting on board at a good time. The light at the end of the tunnel is growing bigger and brighter with every passing week. And goddamn that tunnel was so friggin long, cold and dark.

 

[Randy Randerson]

who do they normally play behind? it's one of those things advanced stats ignore

Anyone who disregards them completely doesn't understand them, and if that's the case you should really give them a shot - they're not voodoo, hard numbers that give a real idea of what the balance of play is when a player is on the ice and how it shifts when they're not

The site I use for linemate toi percentages doesn't add the data until the end of the year, but I would guess that they're drawing oppositions 3rd and 4th lines when Babcock has last change.

They get basically even icetime with Carrick, an obvious tier-gap below Rielly/Gardiner/Zaitsev: http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?agg...162017&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,&sort=timeOnIce

They also get deployed in their own end a lot, though just a little more than the Rielly-Zaitsev pairing, who play against significantly better competition and get significantly better results while playing significantly more ice time: http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/rat...&teamid=28&type=goals&sort=DZPCT&sortdir=DESC

By the eye test, they've been better lately, but were really bad for the first ~30 games by the eye test as well as everything else.

They've become the primary penalty killers which they are actually pretty good at because there's no onus on them to retrieve the puck and break it out, just get in the way and smash it down the ice - something that bottom pairing defensemen should be good at in a structured system with very good puck pressure forwards (something that we finally have too, tanks Coach)

Anyway, really really hard to make a case that these two guys are anything but the worst 2 dmen on the team, but again that's a good thing because the problems are isolated to the expendable pieces

 

[ThrowDemTongs]

Just remember to chime in during GDTs (Gerard Depardieu Toss). If you've ever seen a school of fish erratically change directions, you're in for more of that. My personal recommendation would be to be the head fish, so to speak, and lead things off with some form of scathing criticism directed at Babcock.

In all seriousness, welcome to the greatest fanbase in hockey. Things are looking great right now, so you've (hopefully) missed most of the heartache.

 

[BTP]

What a good time to join the club.

 

[Welsh Maple Leaf]

Again thank you all for the welcome. Seems like a great time to start supporting the Leafs.

From what I've gathered it's been a rough few years but now there's a good structure in place with a great head coach.

Great attacking talent led by Matthews and Marner.

Defense needs a bit of attention and goal tending is good but Andersen may need some rest.

The fans seem absolutely mad for it and I'm happy to join you all!

 

[Prominence]

Hello all,

I worked and lived (Yonge-Wellesley) in Toronto for a few months a couple of years ago and have slowly got into all of their sports. First it was Blue Jays as I was out there in the summer, last year I started watching Raptor games and now I'm getting into the Leafs. I've already bought NHL TV and watched the last 3 matches.

Just wondering if you could help me out with a couple of queries:

Depth Chart

Is there anywhere I can find the list of lines? http://www2.dailyfaceoff.com/teams/lines/40/toronto-maple-leafs
The site is not 100% accurate, but it's a good starting point. This part of the forums has game threads so check them out for the latest lines that come out of practice.

Draft

Is the draft the same as NFL where they draft players from NCAA? The NHL draft is more expansive than the NFL where players from all over the world can be drafted (assuming they declare).

What is this expansion draft all about? The NHL is adding a new team therefore each existing team has to let go some of their players. I'll let someone else answer this.

Prospects

Who are the best prospects the Leafs have? Marner, Nylander, Matthews
Next year, it will be Kapanen, Andrew Nielsen and Travis Dermott.

My dark horse is Rinat Valiev. I am in love with his skating.
Strengths

From what i've seen our best players seem to be: Matthews, Marner, Hyman, Kadri and Reilly.

Am I close?

I noticed Komarov was an all star last season so he must be decent?
Hyman is under-rated. He is the hardest working player but just doesnt have the skill to score more goals or make creative passes. Nevertheless, Hyman drives possession (plays in the attacking/fun zone a lot, which is good). He also forces quite a few turnovers during the penalty kill. Frederik Andersen has been the best leaf this season. Incredibly consistent considering he plays for the leafs. For the past couple of games, Andersen has not been as sharp, but I think he will be back to normal soon. Komarov has not been as good as last year (or rookies have made him look bad), but he is a fast skater and hits the opposition a lot. Nylander is very skilled, but Babcock does not like him because he does not work as hard as the other players.
Weaknesses

Like I say I've only seen 3 matches and I thought the goalie was terrible vs Montreal - is he generally poor? No he's been really good. He was poor in first 5 games due to injury, but has rebounded tremendously. We just have a bad defense.

Who are our weaknesses?
Hunwick and Polak. They spend too much time in the defensive zone. Polak is great on the penalty kill. Martin is a little over-priced, but we need him to protect the rookies. Enroth, backup goalie in ahl, is really bad. Marinin has been below average, but he is injured. Carrick has okay skating, but is in the process of learning his position. Soshnikov has been invisible. Ben Smith is good on the faceoffs, but spends too much time defending.

Play-off chances

We got much of a chance? Yes, but even if Leafs do not make it, I think they have over-performed. Realistically, they should be 20th with the defense they have. That being said, Leafs are still in the hunt and the rookies have been exemplary.

Trades

Any trades on the horizon?
Hopefully Polak and Hunwick for picks.
Next year, it may be Bozak unless he is traded this year. Alot of people want James Van Riemsdyk gone.

Media

Whats the best source of media for Leafs? any podcasts or radio shows I should try and tune into? I'll let someone else answer this.

Schedule

How is the regular season schedule made and how does the play-off schedule work? I'll let someone else answer this.


Sorry about all of the questions but I am starting to enjoy the sport and would like to be more knowledgable leading up to the play-offs. I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions - Look forward to chatting to you all.

A lot of the questions have already been answered by other posters therefore I hope I can be of help.

Lastly, The leafs are the most fun team to watch.

 

[Welsh Maple Leaf]

A question about the draft again - I've googled upcoming prospects so I can learn some the leagues they come from such as OHL (I'm assuming is the best for us to watch?)

Can somebody tell me what MHL is? It's the only one I couldn't find.

Also if players are over 21 coming from SHL or KHL would they enter the draft or just be available free agants?

 

[Randy Randerson]

A question about the draft again - I've googled upcoming prospects so I can learn some the leagues they come from such as OHL (I'm assuming is the best for us to watch?)

Can somebody tell me what MHL is? It's the only one I couldn't find.

Also if players are over 21 coming from SHL or KHL would they enter the draft or just be available free agants?

the CHL is the Canadian major junior league, generates the most prospects. It's made up of the Western Hockey League (WHL), Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and Quebec Major Junior Hockey league (QMJHL). This is the dominant route to the NHL in Canada - Marner, Reilly and Brown came from this league

The US has the US national development program which starts their elite kids young and graduates them primarily to the NCAA college system like basketball or football, or to the USHL which is their junior league - Matthews came through this system and went to the Swiss pro league before his draft to get used to playing against men, which was a very untypical route to go. Van riemsdyk also came from the USNDP


Europe uses a combination of junior leagues and men's professional leagues, most of the big name prospects play in men's leagues before their draft.

Sweden has Allsvenskan as a lower league and The SHL (formerly Swedish elite league) as the pro league - Nylander played here

Finland has Liiga as their pro league, Patrik Laine came from this league

Russia has the KHL as its top league and MHL as its lower league


Depending on players ages and provided they weren't drafted they would likely be undrafted free agents coming over from Europe at ~21 years of age.

The American Hockey League (AHL) and East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) are both minor pro development leagues in north America - the franchises are affiliated with NHL franchises and provide a place for drafted/signed prospects to get used to playing against men on the NHL sized rink (European leagues use a larger ice surface) because the junior leagues all have age limits

Hope that helps

 

[Welsh Maple Leaf]

Great help RR thank you.

I've seen people refer to a player as the goat - who is this?

 

[Randy Randerson]

Great help RR thank you.

I've seen people refer to a player as the goat - who is this?

Frederik Gauthier (pronounced GOAT ee ay) - very large center who doesn't have enough offensive upside to be a star but could be a very good defensive center who will play in defensive situations and match up against other teams scoring lines

He's young still, he may pan out and he may not

 

[Welsh Maple Leaf]

So not for greatest of all time then haha!

 

[Randy Randerson]

So not for greatest of all time then haha!

No that's a happy coincidence, everyone has fun with the nickname. One of the sports radio stations does a segment called the Goat tracker that's pretty funny

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

Ill breakdown the leafs for you:

-Mathews and Marner are our future superstars
-Our defense sucks
-Reilly is our only hope for defense
-Looks like our goalies are pretty good (Anderson is the starter)
-We have the best coach in the league
-Hardworking, skilled and offensive and young team with horrible defense
-Probably gonna trade a forward for a defensemen to upgrade defense
-Trade bait: JVR (vanriemsdyk), Nylander, Bozak
-Team cant hold leads

Best players are: Mathews, Marner, Reilly and JVR (in that order)
Most hardworking: Hyman, Brown, Soshnikov and Komarov

This is in my opinion and someone will disagree somewhere but this is an overall accurate view of the leafs for most fans

A couple lies here

First don't make it sound like Reillyis all we have on D because there is Gardiner and Zaitsev too, the rest of it is garage but to say Rielly is all we have on D is a lie.

2nd Nylander is not trade bait, JVR yes, Nylander no

You claimed accuracy yet there are at least 2 WIDELY inaccurate points

 

[Warden of the North]

This will help you with the draft

http://www.tsn.ca/draftcentre

 

[therealkoho]

Anyone who disregards them completely doesn't understand them, and if that's the case you should really give them a shot - they're not voodoo, hard numbers that give a real idea of what the balance of play is when a player is on the ice and how it shifts when they're not

The site I use for linemate toi percentages doesn't add the data until the end of the year, but I would guess that they're drawing oppositions 3rd and 4th lines when Babcock has last change.

They get basically even icetime with Carrick, an obvious tier-gap below Rielly/Gardiner/Zaitsev: http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?agg...162017&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,&sort=timeOnIce

They also get deployed in their own end a lot, though just a little more than the Rielly-Zaitsev pairing, who play against significantly better competition and get significantly better results while playing significantly more ice time: http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/rat...&teamid=28&type=goals&sort=DZPCT&sortdir=DESC

By the eye test, they've been better lately, but were really bad for the first ~30 games by the eye test as well as everything else.

They've become the primary penalty killers which they are actually pretty good at because there's no onus on them to retrieve the puck and break it out, just get in the way and smash it down the ice - something that bottom pairing defensemen should be good at in a structured system with very good puck pressure forwards (something that we finally have too, tanks Coach)

Anyway, really really hard to make a case that these two guys are anything but the worst 2 dmen on the team, but again that's a good thing because the problems are isolated to the expendable pieces

who said anything of the sort? what I said is that they do not deserve the misguided derision they get from LeafLand, what they do get is the heavy lifting and the coach, (that Mike Babcock guy) chooses to use them to do most of the heavy lifting. The Leafs currently have a detail oriented group at the top of which Babcock is part of and which also includes a stats guy!

what I said was who do they normally play behind, as in what line are they out with the most 5/5, no stats for that until seasons end, that seems odd???

I can tell you this for sure they aren't usually out with the 4th line a whole lot maybe near the end of a shift on rare occasions, they're mostly out with Matthews and Bozak lines and sometime with Kadri's?.....watch how they're deployed come Friday

just to add

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/mid-season-report-card-toronto-maple-leafs-2/

Hunwick: The Leafs get caved in when Hunwick’s out at even strength, but as Mike Babcock has noted, they also give up fewer scoring chances against. He’s an effective penalty killer and has logged more than 18 minutes in eight of the last nine games – a stretch where Toronto went 6-2-1.

Polak: Basically the only player who brings a physical edge on the team’s back end, his performance is otherwise quite similar to partner Hunwick; the Leafs give up fewer goals per 60 minutes when they play compared to other pairings, but they’re also much less likely to score, too.

 

[Ari91]

Hello all,

I worked and lived (Yonge-Wellesley) in Toronto for a few months a couple of years ago and have slowly got into all of their sports. First it was Blue Jays as I was out there in the summer, last year I started watching Raptor games and now I'm getting into the Leafs. I've already bought NHL TV and watched the last 3 matches.

Welcome

Expansion - Expansion is when they introduce new teams to the league. Right now with the Vegas expansion, it means that there needs to be an expansion draft. Every team has to expose some of their roster players to the expansion draft (there are criteria in place that help teams to protect their young stars). The Vegas team will basically create their roster by drafting the exposed players around the league. For the next 3 years, they will also be given equal odds of winning a lottery pick as the 3rd worst team in the league. This gives Vegas the best opportunity to draft high picks in the next 3 years that should ideally help them be competitive. The goal is that going into an nontraditional market, especially a place like Vegas where you'll be competing with a lot of other entertainment options, making the team competitive is the best chance for success.

Strengths - General team strength is team speed and offensive IQ. Matthews, Marner and Nylander are the young stars that drive the play with those traits and they are considered the offensive core that this team will build around. Reilly is generally expected to be a part of the core moving forward with this group. Kadri has been great this year as well. Goaltending has actually been one the team's strengths the past couple of months and is a big part of why the team is battling for a playoff spot.

Weakness - Andersen's game against Montreal was a poor one and hasn't been indicative of his regular play. He struggled in his first 8 (or so) games at the beginning of the season but that was likely a combination of other factors. The real weakness of the team is their blue line. The team needs to improve their defensemen. Zaitsev has been a nice pick-up from the KHL. Reilly and Gardiner are considered are better defenders. Carrick has some promise but in terms of upgrades, we need to start with Polak/Hunwick/Marincin.

Playoff Changes - Right now, the Leafs are still in the thick of things and do have a reasonable shot at playoffs but this is for a number of reason. As great as our young stars are playing, the Leafs have been relatively healthy, Andersen posted numbers in the past 2 months that made him either top or top 3 in goaltending for November and December, AND the Atlantic division is pretty weak. Detroit is trending down, Tampa is has been hit hard with injuries to all of their most important players, Ottawa is average and I guess maybe we can say Boston is average as well. Buffalo/Florida/Toronto are all in various phases of rebuilding. Montreal is the only real threat in the Atlantic division but that leave 2 guaranteed playoff spots that are up for grabs.

Trades - Most feel that JVR is likely next to go because he's the only player that has the value to bring a return to the Leafs that will be useful to them and address a position of need.

Schedule - Not sure what system is implemented when coordinating the schedule but the season is 82 games long. Each team plays 41 home games and 41 away games. An Eastern Conference team plays out of their conference 28 times. A Western Conference team plays out of their conference 32 times (because the East has 2 more teams in than the West). The schedule isn't weighted in any way to ensure a 'fair' schedule. For example, not all teams have to travel as much, not all teams have the same amount of back to back games, etc.

Playoffs - 8 teams advance to the playoffs in each conference. The 3 best records in each division are guaranteed a playoff spot. The wildcard spots are given to the 2 teams with the best record in the conference outside of the teams that have guaranteed spots. The wildcard can come for one or both of the divisions.

The two teams that finish at the top of their division draw the wildcard teams. Division winner with the best record gets W2. The other gets W1. The remaining 4 teams play whoever their divisional opponent is. This guarantees that in the first round, at least 3 match ups are against teams in your own division.

 

[Welsh Maple Leaf]

Just reading through now some stuff and I read that although we drafted Marner in '15 he actually stayed with London Knights for a season - is this common?

 

[Warden of the North]

Just reading through now some stuff and I read that although we drafted Marner in '15 he actually stayed with London Knights for a season - is this common?

Yes. It is rare for a player to make the NHL in his first season after the draft. Usually only the top 1-2 picks do. Most players 2-4 years, if they ever do. Hockey players take a long time to develop, in general.

 

[Welsh Maple Leaf]

Yes. It is rare for a player to make the NHL in his first season after the draft. Usually only the top 1-2 pics do. Most players 2-4 years, if they ever do. Hockey players take a long time to develop, in general.

How come they don't send them down to the Marlies instead?

Is it a physical thing?

 

[Quarter]

How come they don't send them down to the Marlies instead?

Is it a physical thing?

There's an agreement between the NHL and CHL that restricts players drafted out of Canadian junior from being able to play in the AHL until they're 20. It's to help keep the best players within the leagues until they become overage or are clearly good enough to move on and play in the NHL.

European prospects don't have this restriction and can join the AHL or ECHL before their 20th birthday.

 

[Welsh Maple Leaf]

What happens if you draft players from European leagues?

Do they have to first honour their contracts at say KHL or SHL before moving?

 

[Prominence]

What happens if you draft players from European leagues?

Do they have to first honour their contracts at say KHL or SHL before moving?

Overseas prospects sometimes terminate their contracts or Toronto negotiates with the teams overseas It happened with Nylander where the leafs thought the AHL was better suited for his development in the 14-15 season.