So lately the conversation has been about the Leafs unsustainable shooting and how it's likely to come crashing back to Earth. I see a lot of team year-to-year comparisons, but none looking at the trees in that forest and how they perform. What I did was set up a 12F and 6D roster for the Leafs as if it were healthy and with likely lineups: that means no Broll, Bodie, Smith, Fraser, and instead guys like Rielly, Orr, McLaren, etc... Why only 12 and 6? Because that's all that can play in a game and so that's all I care about when making overall estimations for season long performance.

Anyhow, what I did was to look up the players' career shooting and sh% averages, and extrapolate those out to "per 82" and "per game" numbers to find out what the Maple Leafs as a team would perform is every single individual player on the team performed to their career averages. Here's what I got:

Player Position Career Games Career Goals Career Shots Career Sh% Shots/82 Goals/82 Shots/Game Goals/Game
Bolland F 342 73 503 14.51% 121 18 1.47 0.21
Bozak F 248 56 353 15.86% 117 19 1.42 0.23
Clarkson F 426 97 1033 9.39% 199 19 2.42 0.23
Kadri F 109 29 201 14.43% 151 22 1.84 0.27
Kessel F 514 190 1733 10.96% 276 30 3.37 0.37
Kulemin F 353 75 626 11.98% 145 17 1.77 0.21
Lupul F 541 168 1436 11.70% 218 25 2.65 0.31
McClement F 610 71 811 8.75% 109 10 1.33 0.12
McLaren F 75 4 36 11.11% 39 4 0.48 0.05
Orr F 432 12 165 7.27% 31 2 0.38 0.03
Raymond F 384 84 871 9.64% 186 18 2.27 0.22
van Riemsdyk F 252 70 634 11.04% 206 23 2.52 0.28
Franson D 253 23 397 5.79% 129 7 1.57 0.09
Gardiner D 97 7 97 7.22% 82 6 1 0.07
Gunnarsson D 234 12 238 5.04% 83 4 1.02 0.05
Phaneuf D 610 108 1732 6.24% 233 15 2.84 0.18
Ranger D 280 18 355 5.07% 104 5 1.27 0.06
Rielly D 8 1 16 6.25% 164 10 2 0.13
(12F) F 4286 929 8402 11.06% 1,799 207 21.94 2.52
(6D) D 1482 169 2835 5.96% 795 48 9.69 0.58
ALL 5768 1098 11237 9.77% 2,594 254 31.63 3.1

So if we expected the Leafs players to all perform to their career averages (for Rielly I took his shot pace and gave him an average sh% for dmen) then as a team they should be peforming as such:

Shots/Game: 31.63

Goals/Game: 3.1

SH%: 9.77%

In reality, this season (and last season) the Leafs' numbers are:

Shots/Game: 26.8 (26.3)

Goals/Game: 3.3 (3.02)

SH%: 12.31% (11.48%)

So as a team the Leafs' overall shooting numbers are right in line with their paltry performance from last season, but due to shooting 26% above their combined career average their goal scoring is actually up 10% compared to last year, and 6% compared to their expected career output. Is this ridiculous pace going to continue? Of course not, but this data does show that the Leafs as a combination of individuals might be a slightly better than average (9.1%) shooting team.

Links

Leafs Performance Level Statistically Unlikely to Continue

I agree obviously.

Odds and Ends

Random Leafs chit chat.

Thursday Leafs Notes

Rielly, McLaren, other things.

From The Branches