The challenge you run into criticizing and questioning the Toronto Maple Leafs early in a season is we’ve seen this act before.
They’ve crawled out to terrible starts, played brutal defence and allowed a ton of goals. The city goes crazy, wondering if a team with four of the better offensive talents in the league will miss the playoffs, and calling for people’s heads. (This time last year, in some circles, it was coach Sheldon Keefe.)
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Then the Leafs go on a heater, win a pile of games, figure out their defensive play and make some additions at the trade deadline that contribute to a strong regular season. Hope is renewed.
By the end of the year, Toronto has finished fourth overall the past two seasons. But at the 13-game mark in 2021-22 and 2022-23, they sat 17th and 11th at the 13-game mark.
They’re currently 18th, after another ugly loss against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night.
The difference this season, however, is in the details.
The 2023-24 Leafs identity was very clearly delineated in the offseason based on the signings they made.
They lost some strong two-way players and instead bet big on something else entirely, spending their $14 million in available cap space on four free agents who could theoretically provide either offence or physicality but weren’t going to help them in their own end.
At best, the Leafs would be an offensive juggernaut that needed to win a lot of 6-5 games.
At worst? Pretty much what we’re seeing right now.
None of their offseason bets have worked out.
Max Domi hasn’t scored yet and has produced only six points for $3 million, while playing limited minutes mostly on a third line that’s spent a lot of time in its own zone despite varied permutations. There’s still hope for him, in a sheltered role, but the fact it’s been hard to find the right place for him to play isn’t a surprise.
Meanwhile, Tyler Bertuzzi ($5.5 million cap hit) is 10th in team scoring, with a career-worst 25-point pace, and often appears lost and disinterested. He’s taken bad penalties, and has bounced around the lineup, but deserves a little more time given his track record as a scorer indicates he should rebound with more time to acclimatize.
The team’s bigger sinkholes have been well-documented. John Klingberg and Ryan Reaves were two reclamation projects who received baffling contracts in July that look even more confounding now that we’ve seen them play 15 percent of a season.
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They don’t really fit with anyone on the roster. They ruin every pairing and line they play on. The Leafs are badly outplayed when they’re deployed, even in very sheltered situations (which has been a challenge with their injuries on the back end).
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The under-the-hood numbers for the Leafs, the analytics that help separate whether this is an unlucky stretch or something uglier, are as bad as they’ve been since Auston Matthews was drafted more than seven years ago.
For example, at five on five, they’re offering this up:
• Puck possession: 48.7% (17th)
• Expected goals: 46.3% (25th)
• Scoring chances: 46.6% (23rd)
• High-danger chances: 44.0% (27th)
Being that bad in all four metrics is something that likely hasn’t happened in years, even over a short time frame like this first month of the season. And normally all of those going south at once would be cause for significant alarm.
Frankly, the Leafs are very fortunate to have won six of 13 games so far given how much they’re struggling defensively, in goal and on the penalty kill (71.4 percent, which is good for 26th).
It’s only because the Leafs stars have been so outrageously dangerous offensively that they’re not sitting in the Eastern Conference basement with Philadelphia. (Who they’re only three points ahead of.)
So you’re Brendan Shanahan. You have a brand new GM, who made several of the main mistakes that are hurting you right now. You have a coach who you gave a big vote of confidence to with a surprisingly lengthy contract extension.
You’re capped out, and a couple injuries — Timothy Liljegren, you’re our only hope — have hurt more than they should. And there’s very little in the minors you can call on.
What do you do?
Step 1: The Leafs need to start sitting some of these underperforming players. Even if you just minus Reaves’ impact, for example, the Leafs’ expected goals numbers shoot up from the league basement group to 17th.
Yes, he’s not playing a lot, but it’s enough, in very easy minutes, to drag their play down overall. And the Leafs aren’t going to score with him out there, especially playing with David Kampf, whose defence-first abilities are wasted on an identity-less fourth line.
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Removing Klingberg, meanwhile, makes an even bigger positive improvement, given he’s been on the ice for basically 60 percent of the scoring chances against this season. By my calculations, the Leafs are a league-average, break-even team, without Klingberg out there at even strength.
Subtract both Reaves and Klingberg?
Then you’re getting somewhere.
The Leafs don’t have a very difficult schedule coming up. After a back-to-back against Calgary and Vancouver this weekend, there’s the trip to Stockholm, where they’ll play only two games in 13 days.
That few games can be good or bad, in that they’ll get plenty of practice time to figure out the tire fire in their own end, but not enough chances to play their way out of their funk. Getting Jake McCabe and Conor Timmins back should help, if only to give Keefe a few more options on defence, but it’s not too early to start thinking about more radical changes than waiting on the infirmary.
At a minimum, Reaves and/or Klingberg need to start sitting games, as both are getting dramatically outplayed by Marlies call-ups Nick Robertson, William Lagesson and Simon Benoit.
Beyond that, however, it’s closing in on time for Treliving to begin undoing some of what he’s built here, either by making a trade or two, or by putting someone on waivers.
It’s not hard to see where he should start.
Getting that aggressive could open up some cap space to get a look at other players in the organization like Bobby McMann, Mikko Kokkonen and Dylan Gambrell. Carry a deeper roster, sub underperformers out night to night, and make more players accountable.
Even with Timmins’ salary coming back into the fold at some point, Treliving could free as much as $2.8 million entirely through waivers in the weeks to come, money that would allow them to add a new face or two.
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There’s really not a lot to lose, given any veteran they might contemplate dumping isn’t likely to be claimed around the league given their salary. And every player in the minors creates up to $1.15 million in cap relief.
There’s no sense waiting for the trade deadline at this point to start trying to right things.
Not with how much is going wrong and how deeply some of the Leafs newest players are struggling to fit in.
(Top photo of Ryan Reaves and John Klingberg: Mark Blinch / NHLI via Getty Images)
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