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Since the hiring of Peter Horachek, the Maple Leafs have reduced their shots against, but have been ice cold offensively.

Horachek has begun implementing a 5-5-5 system where the team is about moving in units versus cheating for odd man rushes and hanging out at the far blue line, and it has taken some time adjust.

One of the most interesting quotes on the team and their changes came from Ken Hitchcock before the Leafs played in St. Louis. “Everything I see is Nashville,” Hitchcock said. “That’s the way Nashville played for years. You can see the implementation of it. I told our coaches you could show Nashville clips from last year, the year before, five years ago, that is the way they are going to play. There is going to be a tight gap. You’re going to have to get the puck behind them because there is not going to be any room in front of them. You can see that.”

Now, many people will see the link to Nashville and think to themselves, “no wonder they can’t score any more,” but the idea “Trotz wants grind it out defensive hockey and his teams can’t score” is a myth. Since the 2005 lockout, this is how Trotz’s teams have ranked in 5v5 goals for: 17th, 3rd, 5th, 22nd, 11th, 12th, 10th, 26th (lockout year), 12th. On a budget team with not many stars, they were hardly unable to score, and in fact were consistently above average (only 3/9 times in the bottom half of even strength scoring).

So, what is the problem here? Why are they not scoring?

First of all, it’s been 11 games. Eleven. In that span they went to the West coast to play the hardest four game set in hockey– at Anaheim, LA, SJ, and STL. Of those 11 games, only four of them have been at home. I wrote about this right after the Christmas holiday, but the Leafs played an absurd amount of home games early in the season and it was a real possibility that it would catch to them. It has.

Beyond the fact that they have played a lot on the road and faced some very good teams, there has to be some time allotted for things to sort out. Bruce Boudreau did not save Anaheim in a single day. The Ducks started 3-14 under Boudreau and it took him about 20 games to get their possession game up:

Since that time the Ducks have won their division and are on pace to do it again. We live in a world of instant gratification, but you can’t snap your fingers and change a team. In a market like Toronto’s these things only get exacerbated tenfold.

The other interesting thing is how the Leafs are playing, and how it now affects their ability to score goals. A 5-5-5 system is predicated on zone time and movements as a unit, the antithesis of taking home run swings trying to get breakaways and 2v1s. How are they going to score goals in this system? Cycling, zone time, point shots, rebounds, goal mouth scrambles, so on and so forth. The Patric Hornqvist goals in Nashville, so to speak. Because of that, I went through last season’s goals to get an idea of how the Leafs were creating their goals 5v5 and how big of a challenge this would be.

I broke down all the 5v5 goals into three categories; the first being off the rush (breakaways, 2v1s, 3v2s, etc.), the second is shots in zone such as a one timer in the slot or point shot with no screen, and the third is a dirty goal (rebounds, tips, traffic in front, battle winning). To give you an idea, here is an example of a dirty goal from last season, where the Leafs won a battle and Gardiner took a point shot with two, almost three, Leafs in front screening the goalie. Here is an in-zone goal; zero screen, prime scoring opportunity, and the shooter beats the goalie cleanly. Here is the breakdown from the numbers:

In a past Notebook I showed how Horachek is trying to get the team to break out properly and move out of their zone cleanly. The one thing that is already readily apparent is the team has really cut down the time spent in their own zone, not just in terms of shots against, but in terms of getting cycled to death. Against the Devils, for example, the Leafs had a shift where they made an entire line change while possessing the puck in NJ’s end; unheard of in the Carlyle era. But where they are really getting hurt is they just won’t go to the dirty areas. There is a lot of perimeter hockey at the moment with shots from poor angles. Here is the shot location chart from the Flyers-Leafs game; the Leafs were a 60% possession team that night, but you see a good amount of shots from the points and boards, and rarely was there traffic:

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Philly Flyers

In the last three games the team has scored two goals—a breakaway and a 3v2. They’ve had good players miss prime scoring opportunities, which does get lost at times here, but they also don’t show a willingness to go to the net and get a dirty one. And, in this system, if they won’t cycle the puck to the point and then go to the net to cause havoc, the team is not going to score. It shows.

The first eleven games under Horachek have been a disaster record wise; the team is all but out of the playoffs, and tanking seems practical to cheer for. But there are still important things the team needs to work on correcting to get ready for the future. The commitment to defense and clean breakouts is starting to show, but the commitment to getting dirty in the offensive zone is not. One step at a time.

Notes

    • Decided to officially look into this—Reimer with his $2.3M cap hit is the second most expensive backup goalie in the NHL to Calgary’s Reto Berra ($2.75M). He is technically tied for second with Edmonton’s Ben Scrivens. In terms of games started, Reimer is 40th in the league across all goalies. That number though is a little inflated because the Leafs are tied for the second most games played in the league and Bernier is 16th in goalie starts this year. So, through 51 games, Bernier has started 69% of the games and had a fairly average season, while the Leafs employ one of the most expensive backups in the league on a cap team that is in lottery territory.
    • Spoke with Marlies man Kyle Cicerella on David Broll and he had no good reason for why the once promising plugger has completely bottomed out. He has 0 points in 21 AHL games, and 8 points in 14 ECHL games with 4 of those points coming in one game.  He had 16 points in 63 games with the Marlies last season, but he was noticeable on the cycle, with his physicality, and pushing play up ice. On the Leafs he didn’t look completely out of place. According to Kyle –he has watched the Marlies much more than I have, and live—what makes Broll a player is his cycling and forechecking, yet he has inexplicably not been able to do that this year, and without those two tools the rest of his game has fallen off completely. He just turned 22 this year, but the clock appears to be ticking here.
    • While reading this piece on sports and media and how Rogers is putting pressure on their hockey and broadcasting departments due to low ratings, I couldn’t help but wonder how that impacts the Leafs. This is the sticky part of media outlets owning the Leafs. I’ll speak for myself as a diehard fan of the team—I have almost no interest in watching this team currently. So, using my own watching as a gauge, I can only imagine how fair-weather fans are approaching this team. Short of getting a top 2 pick in this year’s draft, it’s hard to envision this team being suddenly strong next year (even if they do get a top 2 pick, they still won’t be, to be honest), or even all that exciting save for a magical rookie year from William Nylander. In saying that, what will the mandate be from ownership moving forward? Is Rogers going to be happy sinking all this money into broadcasting rights when the flagship team and primary attraction is rebuilding and viewers couldn’t be any less interested in them?
    • In the summer I wrote and wondered if it was ever reasonable to expect a team to make the playoffs after a year in which they gave up the most shots against in an 82 game season ever. With the team making the playoffs in the lockout year and missing them the following season only after a few brutal weeks in March, it was easy to be fooled into thinking this is a good team on the verge of breaking out. Here is how they have finished in the standings the last 5 seasons: 23rd, 9th, 26th, 22nd, 29th. This is truly a bad team and the core is going nowhere. It could not be any clearer.

    Quotes

    [quote_box_center]“You can’t make excuses. You’ve got to say that’s his job.”
    – Peter Horachek, after Bernier let in a floater from the far blue line against Arizona.[/quote_box_center]

    Well, he’s right. How many times has this happened to Bernier in Toronto already though? Whatever you want to call it – not paying attention, not focusing enough, being too casual — it’s happening far too often to just chalk it up to fluke and coincidence anymore. I’ve written about this before, but I’ll say it again: This is his second year in Toronto, and in the first he got hurt and missed the last quarter of the season. This season he’s struggled. He was never the true starter in LA. And he wants to get paid this summer? No chance.

    [quote_box_center]“There’s always been speculation about the future of Nonis and whether he’s Shanahan’s guy and what he’s going to do here. Yeah, when Mark Hunter got hired I think there was a widespread presumption he could be a general manager in waiting, if and when Brendan Shanahan makes a move to terminate or put Dave Nonis out to pasture, whatever the case may be. But I’ve also heard, over the course of time, that Brendan Shanahan’s first choice if he were to hire a general manager other than Dave Nonis would be Rob Blake, who worked with Shanahan at Player Safety, and now of course works for the Los Angeles Kings under the Dean Lombardi regime. I personally don’t think Rob Blake has any interest in leaving Southern California. He’s a surfer. He likes working with the Kings. And as much as maybe one day he wants to be a general manager, I’d be absolutely shocked if he wants to do it in Toronto. Even though he’s from Simcoe, Ontario.”

    – Bob McKenzie, on the Leafs GM position.[/quote_box_center]

    Everyone seems to be focusing on who will get traded because the deadline is near, but who the GM is moving forward is by far more important. The organization is directionless right now and there is no voice in the front office that has done this before. Putting someone in charge that actually knows what they are doing should figure to be priority number one before the other dominoes fall, shouldn’t it?

    [quote_box_center]“This is where I want to be and I hope to be for a very long time. [But] it’s not an easy job that they’ve got upstairs right now. It’s always a big numbers game.”
    – Cody Franson, on potentially re-signing with the Leafs.[/quote_box_center]

    Franson is saying all the right things to position himself as the good guy and the Leafs as a bad guy should they part ways. Ultimately the Leafs need to make strong business decisions right now, versus getting caught up in a guy wanting to be a Leaf.

    5 Things I Think I’d Do

    1. I think it’s fine if the Leafs are playing guys like David Booth and Trevor Smith in order to move them, but once the deadline passes they need to put an end to this experiment. The team wanted a fourth line that could play and contribute a little which is fine, and you don’t cover your eyes completely when they are on the ice, but Smith has 3 points in 36 games. Booth has 2 in 28. Enough is enough. Give a few Marlies the opportunity to get some NHL experience and potentially be part of the solution moving forward. Smith and Booth mean nothing to the future of this team.
    2. I think discussing line combinations is a largely fruitless exercise at this point so I won’t do it, but I would like to see Peter Holland continue to get good ice time. Since returning from injury he has played 18:15, 15:42, and 17:52. He’s the biggest center on the team, and he’s still relatively young. Any experience and opportunity he can get to improve his game moving forward would be excellent.
    3. I think the only moves that make sense at the moment are trading pending UFAs because we don’t know who the GM is moving forward. If a deal falls in the Leafs lap where they can get an absurd return from a desperate team trying to win now (SJ? STL?), so be it, but otherwise, don’t let a guy you are maybe -probably – firing in a few months be making more big decisions.
    4. I think, if you didn’t read the first note, I’d move Reimer for the best draft pick I can. It’s clearly not happening in Toronto and he’s making too much money for his role. It was time to cut their losses in the summer, but they signed Reimer to a two year deal and said he’d have a chance to compete for starts, which hasn’t really happened.
    5. I think the next few years is the time to load up on draft picks, but maybe not for the reason you think. In the NFL, I saw the Seahawks take steal after steal in the late rounds because Pete Carroll knew the college route so well and had the inside scoop on hundreds of players. Many of the players he brought over to the Seahawks were players he openly tried to recruit and at times was unsuccessful in doing so (Richard Sherman, for example). Mark Hunter and Kyle Dubas are going to know the OHL like the back of their hand right now. For this draft, and the next draft, they’ll have firsthand knowledge of what these prospects were like playing minor midget, to how they transitioned to the OHL, to what their ceiling is. Evaluating is about putting all pieces of information together to make a judgement, and the amount of information they will have on the two upcoming drafts, at least for the OHL, will be second to none. I am curious to see how many players they take from the OHL, and if they will be able to load up on picks. Now is definitely the time to do it. Teams value draft picks the least at this time of year.