A Defensive Start

RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR

3.43 times a game so far, 24th overall in the NHL.

Granted, nobody thought the Maple Leafs would be able to score as well as they have early this season.

But hands up those of you who predicted the Leafs would be worse defensively under Ron Wilson than they were under Paul Maurice.

Not me.

But the numbers, at least to this point, don't lie. Last season, the Leafs allowed 3.12 goals per game, which left them ranked 27th in the NHL and was part of the reason they missed post-season play and Maurice was fired.

Wilson promised to tighten things up, and certainly his track record suggested he'd be able to do that. And he still might.

But a main reason why this year's Leafs have only been able to win five of 14 games - given all the kudos thrown their way, you'd think that win total would be higher, wouldn't you? - is that they can't keep the puck out of their net very efficiently.

The club's defensive ranking is actually slightly higher, 24th overall. But they're almost a third-of-a-goal worse at 3.43 per game, and climbing after coughing up 23 goals in their last five games. They are also the NHL's worst penalty killing team, another area that Wilson was supposed to clean up. Instead, right now the Leafs are less efficient killing penalties than they were under Maurice last season.

All this should tell you three things:

1) The forwards are getting a little giggly over the team's surprising offence and are looking to join in, leaving their defensive responsibilities uncovered.

2) Despite all the non-sensical talk about how the Leafs have this "surplus" of NHL quality defencemen, they have one A player in Tomas Kaberle, a B player in Pavel Kubina, two C-level blueliners in Mike Van Ryn and Jeff Finger, a raw rookie in Luke Schenn and several others who can't stay in the lineup of one of the NHL's worst defensive teams on a regular basis.

It was suggested here before the season that the Leafs might have the worst blueline crew in hockey. It might not be that bad, but its not much better.

3) Vesa Toskala is not having a good year. He has the league's 26th best save percentage - .886 compared to .904 a year ago - and has won five of 11 decisions despite the fact the Leafs have been regularly outshooting their opponents, particularly of late. Curtis Joseph, through the pre-season and in 65 minutes during the regular season, has yet to indicate he'll be able to help much between the pipes.

The Leafs have posted some surprising results by being faster and more prolific on offence. But bad defence is starting to catch up with them.

Comments

[Roberto]

Rarely if ever do I agree with Mr. Cox, but the numbers do not lie.
Between very average to below average goaltending, and spotty defensive coverage, the Leafs are in fact terrible defensively right now.
Whether or not this will improve as the season moves on, time will tell.
If not, welcome John Tavares.

[TheHipinKingston]

The time to trade Toskala has passed. Too bad because his perceived value was a lot higher than his actual value. A middle-of-the road goaltender is what Toskala is and another example of believing what you want to believe. The hard, cold facts are that Raycroft's stats were better in his one full year as starter than those of Toskala's. Trade a 1st round pick (Rask) for Raycroft and then another 1st round pick and a 2nd round pick for Toskala and Bell. Then think, erroneously, you are getting better when in reality you are not and are actually hurting yourself for the future. Ron Wilson is a good coach and the shots have been reduced which exposes Toskala further as nothing but a middle-of-the road goaltender.

[s1ms2n]

The problem is goaltending.It has been poor and this causes the defence to be tentativeat one time and overcompensating the next.This leads to ruuning around/more chances/goals and around we go.The D has no confidence in the G.Kaberle can skate/stickhandle/pass but play defence-NO.TO SOFT.TO INTIMIDATED.TRADE AT DEADLINE!!

[mark]

So when you say Schenn is a 'raw rookie' what does that mean in terms of your all knowing grading system... Kaberle 'A', Kabina 'B', Finger and Van Ryn 'C'...Schenn.. what? 'D', 'E'..'F'. Face it Damien, you are as guilty as Pat Quinn, a man you once lambasted regularly for being too partial to veterans. You are sticking to your pre-conceived notion that someone at 18/19 years old can't play D in the NHL. Open your eyes and watch this kid. He's an NHL calibre defensemen who will continue to improve. Nuff said. Or, maybe you are just waiting for him to make a couple of very visible blunders so you can crow about how brilliant you are. That would not surprise me one bit.

[Ryan]

I agree Damien, I expected more defensively from this team and I think you hit the nail on the head with the three areas. Toskola has not been as good as he's shown he can be but Joseph to me is a non issue. I never expected him to be good this year and he's only going to play like 10-15 games max. If Tosky gets hurt for an extended period, I expect the leafs will call up Pogge and give him his chance. Now I may be biased since i was a defenseman myself but I think a lot of it does have to do with the forwards. I love seeing players like Steen, Moore and Stajan backchecking but at the other extreme there are guys like Blake coughing up the puck at one end and despite his wheels, just seems to circle back around and pretend to backcheck. Poni is another forward that seems lost in his own end all too often. The defensemen have played alright so far. Kabs is an A with the puck on his stick or in the offesive zone but has trouble taking his man, especially in front of the net. Kubina, while not as offensively giften as Kabs is solid at both ends getting hard low shots on net and is leading the team in blocked shots. Athough they are not immune to defensive lapses, Schenn and Finger have the potential to be a good shut down pair. Who saw Finger's hit at the blue line followed by Schenn taking his man out in the defensive faceoff circle? I'm looking forward to seeing more of that. I think you have to give Van Ryn more than a C though, he's leading the D men in scoring and has broken up more than a few good scoring chances coming the other way (Good luck in Florida B McCabe). The rest of the D are interchangeable and have been disapointing to so-so at best. Regarding the goals per game vs last yr's #'s, It's definitely where the team needs to focus as they have generated some of their best offense by playing hard defensively and creating opportunities going the other way. Even though it's worse than last year, they are still ranked higher which to me means that maybe the # of goals per game in the whole NHL are higher than last year and/or that some other teams have gotten even worse defensively than the leafs. It also may be a product of teams playing looser at the beginning of the year. I believe Mr. Cox said that he expected the league as a whole to tighten up in this regard as the season goes on. So perhaps this is just too early and too small a sample size (14 games) to make an accurate assessment vs last year (82 games).

[FlamFlim]

We all knew the Leafs would be awful this year. With this in mind, I'm not disappointed in the team at all. Going forward, I don't have high expectations so long as King Richard, Larry Tanenbaum, and the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund is running this recurring nightmare.

Given Toronto is the most valuable franchise in the NHL for a third straight year, why would the suits at Leafs Inc. change a damn thing?

[Al Zheimernie]

Not since the old challenge format in the pre NHL days has a Stanley Cup been awarded in November. This is a well coached YOUNG team. Trading what most people who claim to be hockey people the A and B defencemen would provide a definite upgrade over what they have now. The Czech veterans are simply not savvy at reading developing plays and at this time they seem to be getting a free pass from a(supposedly authoritarian) coach who sees them as superior players. Some statistical +/- facts for your consideration:
Tomas Kaberle -4 , Pavel Kubina -3, Mike Van Ryn 1, Jeff Finger 1, Luke Schenn -2.
Schenn is a rookie. What's the excuse for Kaberle and Kubina? I think they should be traded while there is still value placed on them by other deluded GM's. I hope you didn't sustain any serious injury when you jumped off the bandwagon, Damien.

[ostrich_lover]

"not far from the worst blue line crew in hockey" ?

This is a patently ridiculous comment. Cox, you must have a personal grudege against Kubina, either that or you judge his skills based on his first year and half with the leafs. He clearly has been the leafs best defensemen this year, and his improvment over the last season and a half has been outstanding.
Schen is not playing very raw to my eyes...i think the leafs defensive troubles are forward caused, for the most part....they leave their man and skate around like crazy letting in too many clear point shots.
anyways i see a top six like this: Kabs/ Schen Kubina/Frogan carlos/ finger....with white and van ryn extremly expendable....not that van ryn is bad, but hes a 4 or 5 and hes taking away ice time from developing kids....and wouldnt stralmen be better playing 25 mins a night for the farm team? this guy has great potential which he isnt developing being a healthy scratch.

[Mehdi Kajbaf]

Our defense is definitely really struggling right now, but is it just me or does seem like the goals against us are all off deflections in front of the net?

It seems like we have a great forecheck, we seem to get back well and we are in good position, not too many odd man rushes.. yet, in our zone we can't cover anyone..

Toskala makes a save, then they scored on the rebound.. or a shot from the point hits off someones shin and goes in.. it seems like the goals come out of nowhere and it feels like bad luck, but maybe we just have terrible zone coverage and Wilson's zone defense strategy is miserable..

I can't figure it out, seems like we are doing everything right positionally, and with great effort but we still get scored on a ridiculous amount!

[Joel]

Hard to debate those 3 reasons, and #1 is damn funny and true. #2 is a good piece of analysis, as I assume that 'A' defenseman means first-liner, 'B' means second-liner etc. Schenn would have to be 'C' or third-liner at present. And since goalies are (unfortunately) so important in today's NHL, #3 is obvious.

For the casual leafs fan, this team is fun to watch and that's all that matters. And it's also amusing to see a top line of Niklas Hagman, Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin, openly advocating 'euro-hockey', and to think back to Harold Ballard.

[Johnny Thunder]

I'd stick to the rankings as a matter of comparison of defence. Scientists call it a control variable. This year goals are up. Power plays start with an offencive draw, no tv time outs after an icing.. all else being equal, goals will go up. THe heroes have increased their rank, thus have improved relative to the league, thus have improved period. Enron'd stats, again.

Ironically, you accepted the pk unit being 30th in the league unambiguously when a sentence earlier the rank was seemingly secondary.

I like the ABCs though. Raw? is that 'i can't grade because D is a blatant misuse of ink, C doesn't make sense for a guy who plays the pk and logs 21 mins, and B means I have to get off the kid for being good... Raw, yeah, let the reader decide where uncooked fits in the alphabet of defencive merit'

[Marius Czerkawski]

In Hagman, they finally have a creative guy with some finish who would be a great linemate for Sundin. I won't bother to state the obvious at this point. (no pun intended on the "guy with some finish")

[Lewis McClain]

Sundin,Sundin,Sundin... Wellwood, Wellwood, Wellwood. These guys are snipers. They can score, and Sundin can play both ways. Get these guys back... send Coliocovo to the Marlies, or trade him. Get another goaltender, no get TWO goaltenders...Toskala is overrated,and Joseph is done....Fletcher get real....to hell with five years from now, we all may be dead...lets live for today, tomorrow may never come....

[Conn Smythe]

Trade Kaberle and Toskala...

And let's think of next year for this hard -working, entertaining team...

[Brian]

Playing defence is a team game the forwards must come back and help their D. Mr.Cox your grading system is fair but as for Schenn give the kid a break. He has played 3 years in juniors how much more could he learn. Sadly with all the rules in the NHL he could not play in the AHL to develop the pro game . The kid is doing well very well and this is the best environment to play in.
I have said it a thousand times I do not have really expectations from this Leaf team. I know they will not win a cup or maybe even get into the playoffs but if they play hard and keep the direction then I can be patient.
I said also the wheels will come off but come February when they are mired in the bottom players like Toskla Kubina Kabrele all can be very attractive trade bait for picks. For those like Kubina and Kabrele with no trade clauses I am sure the offer to go a team with a shot at the cup would make them drop there no trade clauses.

[Doug]

Once again, the team and coaching staff gets ripped for the miscues of a few. First off, look at Toskala's save % and GAA. The stats speak for themselves. He's not making the saves a top flight goalie needs to make to keep his team competitive. And Cujo's stats are worse.
Seems to me the Leafs are blocking more shots than they have in their past, but their goaltending is letting them down.
As for the D being amongst the worst in the league? C'mon, just because there's no Pronger/Neids or Phaneuf on the blue line doesn't mean they're amongst the worst. Take a look at Tampa, Atlanta, Columbus, Phoenix and even Ottawa. I'll take our dman corps over theirs anyday.
They are trying to learn a new system (zone, instead of man-to-man which they played under Maurice) and are only 14 games into the sked. They've only been blown out of one game so far, as opposed to close to a third the last three years.
And as someone else pointed out, goals overall this year are up league wide, as are PP goals, so it stands to reason even if the Leafs are improving they would still be guilty of giving up more goals. What would improve these stats are premier PK forwards a la Paulsen, Madden, etc. What we throw out there (Steen, Blake) makes for a much tougher assignment for our blue line crew.

[Charles Miller]

The dumbest move I ever witnessed is Wilson pulling Toskala out and putting Joseph in a shootout recently.That was very demeaning for Toskala and lunacy on Wilson`s part putting in Joseph cold.

[Rocky]

Damien, great article except for one thing. This is a rebuilding year. The Leafs are supposed to be bad. It has been only 12 games and already they are worse the Leafs under Paul Maurice. Do you actually read what you write. Rebuilding, rebuilding. What is the part you don't get. The coach has this young group of players, he tries to get them to play a system, some do, some don't and then they remove the ones that don't and get new players. Did I mention the Leafs were rebuilding. It actually shows how little you know about hockey, sports,etc. There is no rhyme or reason to your article. A 3 year old could have done the same stats. Patience! Patience! Did I mention the Leafs were rebuilding.

Keep writing you are doing a great job.

[Clark]

Lewis, what a ridiculous comment.

Wellwood was never a sniper. He's a playmaker at heart, who's found the net a couple times in the last two weeks. Just because the guy pots a few while Demitra is out, all of a sudden he's our saviour. Get real. And from your wish list, apparently there's a 31st team in the league just stocked for a Cup run, and willing to give away everybody, that nobody but you knows about. Because that's what it would take to wave a magic wand and make the Leafs a Cup contender this year.

The numbers back you up, Damien, but I think that 15 games is too small of a sample to make such an assessment. If you had written this article in January after about a half-season, then I'd be certainly more inclined to agree with you.

Grading team defence is one of those things that's tricky to properly assess, because you can do everything right and still end up with nothing for your efforts. The Leafs have markely cut down on shots against, and lead the league in blocked shots. Those are two defensive areas the Leafs have without question improved in.

The biggest problem right now is discipline. The forwards seem to be pressing to force turnovers to get back to the offensive zone, and are picking up tripping and hooking penalties in bad areas of the ice. And their PK is still sub-par.

How to fix it? First, park Ponikarovsky. Every game lately he seems to take some sort of stick penalty in the neutral or offensive zones. The guy is clearly trying to prove to Wilson he belongs in the lineup by trying to create offense, but he's developing bad habits.

Second, Toskala has to be held accountable. Wilson's been quick to make examples of the veteran skaters when they underperform. Yet so far, Vesa has been crud, and has a free ride. Yeah, Joseph looks about finished, but he's not gonna find his game again on the bench, plus yanking Toskala might wake him up, and if they still stink, you'll keep all the "we want a high draft pick" people happy.

As a final note, the first guy said "welcome tavares" If our defense is so miserable, wouldn't we be better off trying to get Hedman?

[John Brouwers]

Goaltending, goaltending, goaltending! Save percentage says it all. While I agree Toskala hasn't let in very many horrible looking goals, he isn't making the big save often enough and he's letting in too many softies (deflected or not) regularly. He's in Raycroft territory with an .866 save percentage. If you want to make the playoffs or build a team that can go deep in the playoffs you need a goalie that provides a .915 save percentage or greater.

Presuming the goalie plays the entire game...If a team averages 25 shots per game against then a goalie with a .915 save percentage has a gga of 2.12 while the goalie with the .886 save percentage has a gga of 3.35 overall.

Wilson's team is giving up less shots per game than Maurice's team last year. While I haven't seen the stats yet I would guess they are giving up less quality chances than Maurice's team also.

Your most important penalty killer is your goaltender. You build a team from the net out. Your skaters play to the level of confidence they have in their goaltender. Right now Toskala isn't getting the job done and in my opinion hasn't yet proved he deserves the reputation he's been granted as a very good goalie.

Wilson and Fletcher know this team would be in a different position if they were getting top notch NHL goaltending right now.

[Jack Poirier]

Damien,
I'm surprised you failed to mention the fact that the Leafs have many more rookies and younger players playing more significant roles with the team this year than last. Younger players tend to make mistakes that more experienced players can limit. I'm sure this fact has led to more scoring opportunities for opposing players this year. Mats Sundin was a good two-way player. Take away his 20 minutes per game at centre and replace with younger kids and it's not hard to see why defence is a problem.

[27fan]

Everything with the Leafs this season has been a surprise. To date, I have to say that the team is progressing well given the number of changes that have been made. Do I agree with all of them? No, but I'm not the coach or manager. I'm thrilled by the effort and speed of the players and they are fun to watch again. The forecheck has been great and the middle zone coverage needs a lot of work. Defensively there are some players that try to do too much but when was the last time this team ranked as high in blocked shots? If Toskala doesn't become more consistent soon, the players will start thinking otherwise when it comes to blocking those shots. Overall, because of their efforts they've earned my viewership.

[Harold Ballard]

It should be quite obvious that goaltending is the problem.

I underline SHOULD be, of course...

[betty goleire]

We need more than a few games to vault Paul back up to greatness.... Didn't know you were still in love with Paul. Paul was the worst coach the leafs ever had - but you and rest of your press buddies couldn't get enough. No Ron is better than Paul and you press guys need to get over it - keeping the press happy shouldn't be job 1 for the coach......

[Leaves]

This is a blatant misuse of statistics. At the end of the season the Leafs avergage 3.12 goals against per game. Where were you after the first season of the game, the Leafs had only given up 2 goals per game, a vast improvement over last season. That would have made a great article, but of course that would mean Cox writing something good about the Leafs. It is impossible to compare stats after one month to those after an entire year. Damien, next time use accurate stats, not just those that will fit your agenda.