Maple Leafs need you to yell 'SHOOT' at your TV

There are some interesting stories when it comes to the Maple Leafs being outshot. The first is that the shots against rate have been consistent throughout the past five years. The Leafs average 29 or 30 shots against no matter who is coaching them. It’s not a great number, and when the decision to play a more defensive style of hockey was implemented the result wasn’t fewer shots, the only result of moving towards defensive responsibility is the drop in shots for.

The other takeaway that comes into play is that the drop in PDO (save percentage + shooting percentage) has dropped. That is generally a sign that luck has run out, and while luck might be an oversimplification, it is more the reality that goaltenders don’t stay on heaters forever and the same is true of shooters. Banking on Dakota Joshua returning to a 20% shooting percentage was a gamble that a lot of GMs wouldn’t make, although the Leafs are sixth in the league in high danger chances and fourth in the league with an unsustainably good shooting percentage of 13.9%, perhaps a sign that the Leafs troubles could get worse (the increasingly difficult schedule should be a concern.)

The normalization of goaltending results is a big part of the Leafs troubles, and it’s not even that they’ve normalized, they’ve struggled. Cayden Primeau’s -6.8 goals saved above expected is the second worst result in the NHL, while Anthony Stolarz’ -3.7 is the 6th worst, although improves to 17th worst when you look at GSAE/60. Dennis Hildeby, in contrast, has been a bright spot with 1.4 GSAE in his limited time despite tough results.

With Woll’s return there is some hope of improvement, and Stolarz’ 25.8 GSAE last season and his 20.1 GSAE the year before point a goaltender who should turn things around as even on a struggling Ducks team in 2022-23 Stolarz managed 0.4 GSAE.

Goaltending shouldn’t be the issue. Offence or the lack of it should be.

As mentioned above, the Maple Leafs are one of the top teams for high danger chances and have a pretty high success rate when they actually shoot. A team with Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares, and Matthew Knies can still comfortably consider offence its identity over goaltending and defence, and the secondary cast of McMann, Robertson, Maccelli, Domi, and others is certainly an adequate threat to sustain offensive pressure for the majority of the game. Defencemen like Morgan Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are at their best when pushing the puck up ice as opposed to defending and Marlies like Henry Thrun or William Villeneuve potentially have something to offer the Leafs as additional offence from the blueline should the team ever call on them to replace a struggling defenceman like Philippe Myers. The Leafs can get up their offensive numbers again and given that history shows that it doesn’t come with much impact to the defensive game and it’s hard to imagine it would make physical players like Joshua, McMann, Lorentz, or Knies hit less, it seems like dulling the creativity of the Leafs needs to be scaled back.

And while that is easier said than done as Mitch Marner or his replacement aren’t walking into the Leafs locker room any time soon and age has a way of slowing down the Leafs team that largely relied on speed as the means to generate offence in the Keefe years, but youthful options like Robertson and Cowan are at least a small part of gaining some of that speed back and the activation of blueliners like Rielly and Ekman-Larsson establishes a bit more puck control the team gave up with Marner’s departure.

The Leafs need to be an offensive team to be successful and honestly that seems like an easier fix than figuring out their defence. They’ve fought the offensive team identity under Craig Berube and have tried to fix the one thing about the Keefe era Leafs that didn’t need fixing. For what it’s worth, Craig Berube’s Stanley Cup winning Blues relied on outshooting opponents and while a goaltender on a heater unquestionably was the biggest part of success, Berube’s best years didn’t see his team sit back as much the current Leafs do.

It’s not particularly groundbreaking to say that outshooting your opponents is the path to victory, but for a team that is still primarily skewed towards offensive success it seems like focusing on offence to achieve that result rather than shot suppression would be the right path forward unless Morgan Rielly starts playing like Alex Pietrangelo in his prime.

Data from Natural Stat Trick and Moneypuck