NHL.com is doing features to fill the summer months. It's cute they still call their gambling content "fantasy analysis".
Mike Zeisberger
Let's see what that actually says. It begins with a retcon of what Treliving meant when he promised changes. Or perhaps that could be seen as a swipe at reporters and pundits who banged the drum for trading untradeable players until nearly everyone figured out it was absurd.
"New captain" is very funny to me. This isn't the first time I've seen predictions the Leafs will be better because a different guy has that position. But the meaningful change, and the meat of this article is the coaching change and the signing of defencemen who can't get outplayed by Mark Giordano. This is an article for people who turned off the sports news in May and given that, it seems like they should have published it a month from now.
A fun thing:
We got you 😉 https://t.co/3cueTzELfJ pic.twitter.com/SE0iOvzEK3
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) August 27, 2024
NHL.com is also promoting their Edge player and puck tracking information.
Pete Jensen
I've already covered off in an older article what I found useful about this stuff – almost nothing. The zone time information comes in a handy graphic, but there's no indication it offers up much that Corsi % doesn't.
My take on this article is that is says things that are true, but so decontextualized, that you're left with, "So that's good, then?" as the only response.
The first of the three main points is about Auston Matthews and William Nylander shooting from "midrange", what we'd likely call medium danger. They both do it a lot when measured as total numbers of SOG from those locations. Okay. Well, Matthews shoots more than almost anyone, in rate and due to minutes played, and Nylander played a lot of minutes and has a normal player's high shot rate, so... That's good then? If you don't take into account minutes played, if you assume SOG instead of all shots is a good measure, if if if.
The second point is the John Tavares was second in the NHL to Zach Hyman in high-danger SOG. No one who is familiar with these two players (and remembers that minutes played is baked into counting stats) should be surprised. But is this good, then?
Take a trip through your local site that visualizes shot location or measures volume and quality by Expected Goals and look at Tavares's career of late. Something weird is going on there. He is either on the world's longest shooting % drought or something is impacting his ability to score from shot locations that look outstanding and from where he used to get goals. I don't discount the random factor entirely. There's no natural law that says you regress after one season of abnormal results. Maybe it's three or four or more.
Figuring out if there is a way to get more value out of Tavares's talents is surely a goal the Leafs should be pursuing. And as much as I like shots as a measure, in this case, the conundrum of the goals vs the shot rate and location is where your eye should land.
The point is made here that the Leafs were second only to the Oilers in high-danger SOG and goals, a reminder that the Leafs didn't have an offence problem.
The third point is about Joe Woll and is just save %. So read that if you want to know what you already know. The only question I have about Woll is how likely is he to repeat that excellent high-danger save record? And the answer to that is not on NHL Edge.
The T25 continues today with the article I found the second most enjoyable to write which you should read. Otherwise, there really is time left this summer to do nothing.
