For years, the Toronto Maple Leafs were perennial heart breakers to their fans. From 2005-2013, the Blue Buds avoided the postseason in each year, a couple of times blowing playoff spots down the stretch. Last year, they finally broke their postseason-less streak and even took the eventual Eastern Conference champion Boston Bruins to seven games, which they should have won but blew a 4-1 lead in the third period of the deciding game.
The Leafs were able to accomplish what seemed improbable:
Toronto finished last in the NHL in CorsiFor% at 44.1 percent. The only other team to make the playoffs with a league-worst CF% in the Behind The Net era (since the start of 2007-2008) was Anaheim in 2010-2011 at 44.4 percent.
Coincidentally, both teams lost in the first round.
The correlation between winning and possession is strong, as this graphic from the SBNation Canadiens blog Eyes On The Prize shows us. Not only is puck possession the best predictor of success, but it’s also the most repeatable of all the predictors. Good possession players will probably be a good possession team and good possession teams stand a good chance for success, and usually do succeed.
The last six Stanley Cup champions, starting from 2008, and their corresponding final regular season CF% ranking are as follows:
- Detroit (first)
- Pittsburgh (19th)
- Chicago (first)
- Boston (14th)
- Los Angeles (second)
- Chicago (fourth)
Only one Cup-winner was in the bottom half of the league in regular season CF%, none were in the bottom-third, and Pittsburgh went 18-3-4 after the hiring of Dan Bylsma in ‘09. And, you know, they had Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
Until another method is figured out, out-shooting your opponent gives a team the best chance at winning over a good sample size, like an NHL season.
Goal Scoring, Puck Possession and Building a Winning Team
The run the Leafs have been on for the last 62 games is pretty incredible. Since the start of the lockout-shortened season, the Leafs have scored more goals than any other team in the NHL not named Penguins or Blackhawks. While scoring a lot of goals doesn’t necessarily mean you will find success – the Lightning, Flyers, Stars and Flames all missed playoffs last year despite all finishing in the top-12 in goals scored, and there were three teams in 2011-2012 who met such circumstances with three the year before – 69 percent of teams to finish in the top 12 in goals scored in the NHL have earned a postseason berth over the last three seasons. That’s much better than the 53 percent inherent odds of making an eight-team playoff with 15 teams in the Conference, and way better than the 31 percent chance of making playoffs if they improved their FenwickClose% by 4-5 percent through player dumps/acquisitions (which, by the way, is not easy to do) as that chart from EOTP suggests. The Leafs were one of the unfortunate teams to be top 12 in 2011-2012 in goals scored and not make the playoffs, finishing 10th. Last year, the Leafs found some fortune and made the playoffs after finishing sixth in goals scored. To this point in the season, the Leafs are third at 3.31 goals/game.
The Leafs, through sheer virtue of their goal scoring, put themselves in a decent position to get to play Spring hockey, excluding other factors.
At this point, here’s a friendly reminder to everyone as to why puck possession is valued.
First of all, FenwickClose% has been found to be the most predictive of future success for a hockey team, even more so than current wins. As I also mentioned, possession is the most repeatable. In other words, it’s easier to be a continuously good possession team than a continuously good scoring team. Luck is an important part of sports, and hockey is no exception. So if you preclude the events that are out of your control, what do you do that gives you the best chance to succeed? Well, it seems that having a good shot attempt differential in close games is a good predictor of success, which is FenwickClose%.
So a general managers tries to build a team that can do that; speed and skill on the wings, play-making centres and good puck-moving defensemen. A coach then instills his system on the team and the hope is that system suits the players on the roster.
It’s a simple formula that is incredibly difficult for an NHL team to assemble all for one season. You have to hope a few draft picks start peaking at the right/same time, maybe there is a free agent or two that need to mesh well, you hope the veteran players aren’t declining and your stars play like stars. And those stars probably all need to be healthy. A team with two of the best talents of this generation has managed one Stanley Cup in seven seasons. Chicago is a model of success, and it goes beyond hitting big on Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. The pieces they have put around their star players along the way (Andrew Ladd, Dustin Byfuglien, Dave Bolland, Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, among others) are excellent players in their own right. This is where Edmonton is struggling, and how teams like Chicago and Boston have been consistent for several years now.
When it does all go right for a franchise, as we’ve seen from the top-to-bottom complete teams that have won the Stanley Cup in recent memory like Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, the reward is potentially huge.
On that list of predictors of future success I linked above, you’ll notice that third on the list is goal differential.
Playoffs
One team statistic that has been a pretty good indicator of playoff teams is having a positive goal differential; from 2010-2013, only three (Minnesota, 2013; Florida, 2012; Washington, 2012) out of 48 playoff teams had a negative goal differential.
In the lockout-shortened 2013 season, the Leafs managed a (+12) goal differential, scoring 3.02 goals per game, which was sixth in the league. The Leafs also shot an NHL-high 10.56 percent while at 5 on 5 play, becoming only the second team since 2007 to shoot over 10% at even-strength (Washington, 2009-2010). Their playoff position was a result of being ninthin GoalsFor% at even-strength, average team goaltending while at even strength, a good power play and excellent penalty killing.
They accomplished what some thought they wouldn’t do and bucked the possession trend: Despite being second-last in the NHL in FenwickClose% at 43.7 percent, they were in the postseason.
Granted, they were ousted in seven games in rather memorable fashion. Remember that chart from EOTP: No team since 2007 has made the playoffs with a FenwickClose% under 45 percent going into the shortened season, yet the Leafs made it one out of ten teams. And they should have won their first round match-up against a Boston Bruins team that had strong possession numbers all season. That’s quite the accomplishment, and flies in the face of what any possession metric would have predicted for the year.
As of today, the Leafs are tops in the Eastern Conference with 20 points in 14 games, which is also good for second in the NHL. That pace would put them at about 117 points in an 82 game season, which is more than any team had in 2011-2012. Their +16 goal differential is also the best in the East.
The hot start has put them in a great position to make the postseason, as they only need 75 points in their remaining 68 games to get to the 95-point plateau. If they can win about half their remaining games, or 34/68 for 68 points, there should be enough overtime/shootout losses by the end of season to put them over the top.
Can the Leafs sustain their winning rate? I will look at that, and factors that led to their success, in the future posts of this series.
