Data Dive: Analyzing the abysmal offensive production from the Toronto Maple Leafs’ defence corps

The Toronto Maple Leafs look very different under head coach Craig Berube than under former head coach Sheldon Keefe. The Maple Leafs are winning closer games than in years past, and I no longer have that existential feeling of dread when it’s 4–1 2–1 in the third period.

However, one big flaw that stands out with the Maple Leafs’ play is the lack of offence from the defence corps. The Maple Leafs signed Oliver Ekman-Larsson to a four-year, $3.5M AAV contract last off-season, hoping he would bolster their defense, which was offensively challenged.

While last season the offence from the back-end was not as good as the 2022–23 season, it was not close to this bad. In this past December, the Maple Leafs defence corps scored zero goals, which is just outright horrible.

But how bad has the offence been from the Maple Leafs’ defencemen this season? Is it just overblown by the media? Let’s take a deep dive into the data and investigate.

Methodology and Terminology

The data presented below is obtained from Natural Stat Trick. The data was aggregated by team, and other statistics (e.g., goals per 60 (G/60) or points per 60 (Pts/60)) were computed.

Here is the terminology of the advanced statistics, again largely taken from Natural Stat Trick:

• iHDCF – Any high danger scoring chance by the player, outside of the shootout.
• iSCF – Any scoring chance by the player, outside of the shootout.
• iFF – Any unblocked shot attempt (goals, shots on net, and misses) by the player, outside of the shootout.
• iCF – Any shot attempt (goals, shots on net, misses, and blocks) by the player, outside of the shootout.
• ixG – Expected goals
• G/60 – Goals per 60 minutes of ice time
• Pts/60 – Point per 60 minutes of ice time

Examining the 5v5 offensive production by defence

So far this year, the Maple Leafs rank near the bottom in almost every category imaginable¹.

Table 1. Table showing the ranking of the offensive production by defence for all 32 NHL teams in different offensive production categories 5v5.

Team	Goals	Assists	Pts	Shots	ixG	iCF	iFF	iSCF	iHDCF	G/60	Pts/60
ANA	18	66	84	415	19.41	992	618	268	49	0.18	0.84
BOS	12	48	60	307	12.79	781	472	209	30	0.14	0.71
BUF	14	70	84	313	15.84	771	484	228	43	0.18	1.06
CAR	19	58	77	438	18.06	1200	754	295	28	0.23	0.93
CBJ	24	63	87	393	21.75	900	592	285	62	0.28	1
CGY	13	44	57	336	13.86	916	557	215	32	0.16	0.7
CHI	13	45	58	271	11.7	682	429	182	26	0.15	0.69
COL	15	69	84	428	20.36	1099	643	324	52	0.18	0.99
DAL	12	51	63	332	16.81	893	522	259	48	0.15	0.78
DET	12	52	64	322	16.33	861	528	237	40	0.12	0.66
EDM	19	58	77	474	18.95	1063	679	293	38	0.22	0.89
FLA	21	48	69	400	17.26	982	611	259	32	0.25	0.82
LAK	15	54	69	316	13.69	821	503	197	29	0.19	0.86
MIN	25	47	72	341	12.87	790	490	221	39	0.3	0.86
MTL	19	65	84	372	16.59	888	552	244	39	0.21	0.91
NJD	12	60	72	347	15.75	925	544	268	35	0.14	0.84
NSH	10	29	39	348	17.4	813	492	226	48	0.15	0.59
NYI	18	53	71	377	13.7	915	561	233	32	0.2	0.8
NYR	13	55	68	288	14.67	758	453	215	35	0.17	0.88
OTT	9	42	51	375	13.55	928	553	237	28	0.11	0.63
PHI	18	48	66	325	17.53	796	504	230	54	0.21	0.76
PIT	12	56	68	369	14.38	1012	594	239	31	0.13	0.74
SEA	20	45	65	347	16.69	856	571	204	40	0.25	0.82
SJS	21	47	68	354	13.87	868	521	215	39	0.24	0.78
STL	15	37	52	271	12.65	664	419	199	32	0.22	0.76
TBL	14	64	78	324	15.38	855	531	231	43	0.17	0.95
TOR	7	57	64	303	12.36	779	483	198	23	0.08	0.77
UTA	13	50	63	273	13.82	711	446	199	34	0.19	0.92
VAN	17	56	73	319	13.6	864	519	203	23	0.21	0.9
VGK	18	64	82	414	17.49	995	619	267	39	0.2	0.92
WPG	16	67	83	375	14.98	951	601	207	23	0.18	0.94
WSH	14	62	76	338	15.11	941	577	259	33	0.17	0.93

As we can see, the Maple Leafs are abysmal in offence by defencemen collectively, ranking in the bottom third of the league in most of the offensive metrics. Notably, the Maple Leafs are last in goals with seven, last in high-danger scoring chances with 23, second last in expected goals with 12.36, and third last in any scoring chances with 198.

The only decent metrics that the Maple Leafs’ defencemen are good at are total assists, ranking 13th with 57, and upon breaking total assists down, secondary assists, ranking sixth with 33. However, the Maple Leafs’ defence corps ranks 17th in primary assists with 24, which is more indicative that the Maple Leafs’ defencemen are involved with a play, as opposed to a first pass to a player before entering the offensive zone or just inside the offensive zone. 

The story looks as bad on the power play.

Examining the power play offensive production by defence

Table 2. Table showing the ranking of the offensive production by defence for all 32 NHL teams in different offensive production categories on the power play.

Team	Goals	Assists	Points	Shots	ixG	iCF	iFF	iSCF	iHDCF	G/60	Pts/60
ANA	4	10	14	55	3.73	118	76	31	4	0.79	2.77
BOS	1	13	14	39	3.61	95	58	39	5	0.19	2.64
BUF	4	13	17	33	2.72	77	48	22	2	0.8	3.41
CAR	5	16	21	47	4.54	110	74	30	4	1.01	4.22
CBJ	6	16	22	45	4.02	103	59	35	5	1.43	5.24
CGY	7	12	19	41	2.84	90	55	31	0	1.5	4.08
CHI	4	18	22	28	2.15	52	38	17	1	1.14	6.27
COL	8	16	24	48	4.58	114	73	43	9	1.6	4.8
DAL	1	10	11	30	2.43	94	50	27	0	0.21	2.33
DET	1	23	24	34	3.01	88	60	24	1	0.23	5.48
EDM	3	16	19	37	3.13	94	53	29	1	0.67	4.24
FLA	0	20	20	37	3	85	51	28	2	0	4.04
LAK	2	9	11	22	2.1	49	28	16	1	0.61	3.35
MIN	3	10	13	30	1.8	49	38	13	1	0.72	3.14
MTL	1	23	24	18	2.11	65	34	24	2	0.22	5.34
NJD	7	16	23	52	4.74	113	70	59	3	1.62	5.33
NSH	3	18	21	28	3.52	74	49	27	4	0.75	5.25
NYI	0	9	9	55	3.42	108	74	28	1	0	1.99
NYR	1	17	18	27	3.27	59	42	18	4	0.27	4.91
OTT	2	21	23	41	3.13	94	52	28	2	0.42	4.8
PHI	2	11	13	20	1.47	55	30	14	1	0.44	2.83
PIT	4	26	30	57	5.58	114	81	34	5	0.65	4.86
SEA	7	11	18	50	4.08	101	72	23	4	1.49	3.84
SJS	1	10	11	24	3.17	68	45	16	3	0.24	2.65
STL	1	10	11	21	2.13	45	31	17	3	0.37	4.02
TBL	2	22	24	41	4.42	113	69	37	4	0.47	5.61
TOR	2	8	10	21	1.91	59	36	24	2	0.54	2.7
UTA	4	12	16	27	2.3	70	43	16	0	1.06	4.22
VAN	3	22	25	40	2.78	99	62	27	1	0.69	5.74
VGK	3	17	20	36	2.31	76	45	25	1	0.76	5.09
WPG	4	23	27	22	2	72	42	14	1	0.99	6.72
WSH	6	20	26	55	5.74	119	83	45	4	1.01	4.38

As with 5v5, the Maple Leafs’ offensive production by defencemen is collectively is abysmal, with ranking in the bottom third of league in almost every offensive metric. Notably, the Maple Leafs rank last in total assists with eight, second last in total points with 10, and third last in expected goals and shots with 1.91 and 21 respectively.

Table 1 and Table 2 have a lot of information. It would be nice to derive a single metric that can incorporate all of the above information into a single score. Since each score has different scales, we applied a min-max normalization to each raw value to normalize the data. This data also takes into consideration first assists, second assists, rebounds created and rush attempts, which are not in the above tables. We then summed each metric to give an overall score for each NHL team.²

Figure 1. Figure showing the team ranking of offence by defencemen for all NHL teams by game state for the 2024–25 season.

Overall, the Maple Leafs rank 29th in offensive production by defencemen 5v5 and 32nd on the power play when considering all of the metrics listed in Table 1 and Table 2. While we know that Craig Berube’s system is more focused on the defence at the expense of scoring, as we found in our deep dive into secondary scoring earlier this season, the Maple Leafs defence should still be producing better than what they have been.

When comparing the overall ranking to previous years, the Maple Leafs are notably worse than previous seasons.

Figure 2. Figure showing the overall ranking of offence by defencemen for the Toronto Maple Leafs by season and by game state.

The Maple Leafs are nowhere close to previous seasons in terms of offensive production by defencemen, especially on the power play where for the last two seasons it was ranked 13th. 

Way forward: Should the Maple Leafs acquire a defenceman?

It might be in the Maple Leafs’ best interest to acquire a defenceman in addition to or instead of a forward at the trade deadline. As we have pointed out in several postgame articles this season, teams simply do not view the Maple Leafs’ defence as an offensive threat and are often able to disrupt the passing and chances created by the forwards.

As a consequence, this gives Craig Berube and power play coach Marc Savard have fewer options at critical points in games, such as when on the power play, which is currently ranked a mediocre 16th, or when the game is tight and the team desperately needs a goal.

Regardless of what the Maple Leafs do, either trade for offensive help on the back-end, or modify the coaching strategies to allow the defence to be more active in the offensive zone, the Maple Leafs need to fix this glaring issue before they go into the playoffs. The Maple Leafs have had a hard time scoring goals in the playoffs, and with the defence not scoring many goals or points this year, it does not bode well.

1. First assists, second assists, rebounds created and rush attempts were analyzed but excluded from the in-text tables because of table formatting. Please see the 5v5 and PP spreadsheets below for the aggregated data files for the 2024-25 season. ↩︎
2. For the fellow statistics nerds out there:  The obvious drawback by using the min-max method and summing the metrics together is that it assumes that each metric has equal weighting. So for example goals and rebounds created have an equal weight, which in reality is likely not accurate. Since there was no easy way to come up with the weights for each metric, perhaps a future article will attempt to do this, the “quick and dirty” method was preferred to give an overall picture. ↩︎