Maple Leafs after 10 games: How are they better? Where are they worse?

I’ll say up front that this post will be pretty stat-heavy.

I like to do a deep analytical dive like this early in the season, as it can help highlight some developing trends and give us a sense of how a team is performing in underlying numbers that can often be more predictive than wins and losses.

If that’s not your cup of tea, this might be one column to sit out.

After their big win over the Winnipeg Jets on Monday, the Toronto Maple Leafs are 5-4-1 in their first 10 games, a meh 90-point pace. That’s typically not enough to make the playoffs, but let’s face it: It’s awfully early to be worrying about such projections.

Under the hood, there’s both good news and bad news regarding how the Leafs have played. Below, I break down their results into different situations and compare them to a year ago when the Leafs finished 10th overall with 102 points in the standings.

After some big offseason additions, especially on the blue line, the front office hopes this group can take a step forward from last season, especially in the playoffs. So let’s dig in and discuss the good, bad and ugly of the Leafs’ start to the 2024-25 campaign.

An assist goes to Evolving Hockey for the majority of the data used here.

The Leafs at even strength

What’s interesting looking at the Leafs at even strength so far is they profile very similarly to last season’s team. They’re one of the highest-scoring teams in the league, on a per-minute basis, and they’re generating a lot of looks at the net and scoring chances (which I’ve used expected goals, or xG, to represent).

What we are not seeing so far, however, is tangible defensive improvements at five-on-five, which is surprising given the additions of Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson on the back end. It’s only been 10 games, and there have been some very impressive performances mixed in, but it’s clear that new coach Craig Berube’s system is still a work in progress.

There’s no way he’ll be satisfied with being 18th in chances against by season’s end.

The biggest change, really, for this team at even strength has come in goal. Behemoth netminder Anthony Stolarz has been a revelation, and it’s helped mitigate the fact their shot and chance prevention have been relatively average.

At five-on-five, Stolarz is second in the NHL in goals saved above expected so far, which is a huge reason why the Leafs even-strength goal differential is the sixth-best in the league. If he can continue to play this well, and they tighten up a bit more in their own end, they should take a step forward in one of the most important areas this season.

The other thing worth noting is who has been on the ice when all of those quality chances are coming against. The first line so far is actually one of the most porous, with Matthew Knies, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner having been on for more than three goals per 60 minutes at five-on-five early on.

The good news? They’re heavily outscoring that mark, so overall their goal differential is strong (58 percent with Matthews on the ice), but that top line has posted much better chance-suppression numbers in the past. I suspect they can get back there again in time, as they adjust to having Knies on LW and some different blueliners on the ice with them.

Speaking of which: The biggest positive in the chance-suppression department has clearly been Tanev. He’s posted 2.05 expected goals per 60 minutes so far, which is top 20 leaguewide among big-minute defencemen.

They’re getting their money out of his new deal early on. And he’s bringing an element they just didn’t have in this department a year ago.

The Leafs on the power play

This is obviously a big-time problem. Probably their biggest.

We’ve been able to see that using the eye test through 10 games, with both Leafs units struggling to generate much of anything to date. It’s so bad that almost the entire decline of the Leafs’ offence (from 3.63 goals per game last season — when they were the second most dangerous team in the NHL — down to 3.20 so far this year) is coming on the power play, where Toronto has scored a measly 0.30 goals per game.

The underlying numbers do show that they’ve been a bit unlucky, as highlighted by the massive shooting percentage drop, but a group this talented sitting 19th in shot attempts and 12th in scoring chances when up a man is unacceptable.

It’s not often one special team is this solely responsible for a team taking a step back in the standings, but that’s effectively what’s happening here in the early going. Get the power play sorted and the Leafs should be at least as good as the 102-point team they were a year ago.

Likely better, as we’ll discuss below.

Your move, Marc Savard.

The Leafs on the penalty kill

There are some positive signs here, for sure. Nothing is certain at this point, but early indications are the Leafs should be appreciably better than the ugly 76.9 percent PK they were rolling out a year ago.

Shot and shot-attempt suppression is important to analyze on the PK because it’s an indicator of how long teams are spending in-zone while short-handed, something that has clearly come down thanks to a new system and better personnel.

One thing that jumps out is the Leafs have been downright dominant with Matthews on the ice short-handed, allowing only 4.66 expected goals per 60, which puts him among the top penalty-killing forwards in the league. That should embiggen his Selke case from a year ago, when he finished third in top defensive forward voting.

The Jake McCabe-Tanev pairing is also producing strong results on PK1.

The biggest issue I see short-handed so far is the Leafs are taking way too many penalties. They rank second last in the NHL in time spent down a man so far this season, the result of being short-handed a whopping 4.1 times per game.

That’s over 40 percent more than a year ago.

So much time on the PK puts a lot of strain on players like Tanev, and even Matthews and Marner, who could do more damage offensively if deployed more at even strength.

Being more disciplined will be a big factor in the Leafs winning more games here the rest of the way. Of note: Simon Benoit and Max Domi are among the NHL leaders in minor penalties taken per 60 minutes played so far, which is not a list you want to be on.

The Leafs overall: Early conclusions we can draw

I’ve highlighted a lot of the key takeaways from this chart above already, but the overall numbers reinforce where the Leafs have taken steps back.

Nothing here is a fatal flaw, however — assuming they can get the power play turned around, as it’s dragging down the goals-per-game and shooting-percentage figures almost singlehandedly.

The priority checklist for Berube has to be something along these lines in the next 20-odd games:

1. Get the power play sorted out, at least to the point it’s better than league average

2. Stop taking needless, silly penalties, especially when protecting a lead

3. Lean on Tanev to continue to implement the new defensive system and cut down chances against

4. Facilitate more support scoring from the likes of Max Pacioretty by giving depth players opportunities with the stars

5. Integrate players getting healthy (Joseph Woll, Jani Hakanpää, Calle Järnkrok and Connor Dewar) to improve contributions deeper in the lineup

If the Leafs can do all of that by midseason, then make an addition at centre ice before the March 7 trade deadline, they have a chance to be a better, more playoff-ready team than a year ago.

It’s a lot to accomplish, but these aren’t insurmountable problems given the personnel they have and the trends we’re seeing through the first month of the season.

(Photo of Chris Tanev and Anthony Stolarz: John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)