Toronto Maple Leafs: 3 storylines to watch this season
theScore's NHL editors take a look at three storylines to watch for each NHL team heading into the regular season.
The Aristocrats!
The Toronto Maple Leafs' hockey operations department appears to be in the midst of a major transition. This offseason, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) - the corporate entity that owns and operates the NHL club and is caught in the middle of a reorganization of their own - brought in Brendan Shanahan as president of the hockey club.
Shanahan replaced general manager Dave Nonis as the man with his finger on the button, but Nonis was retained even as Shanahan cleaned out other familiar faces in the front office. Head coach Randy Carlyle was also retained (and extended), though Shanahan fired and replaced every one of Carlyle's assistants.
It would seem the Maple Leafs are poised to move (not-so-decisively) from the Nonis era to the Shanahan era, but the continued presence of Carlyle and Nonis makes that transition seem arrested.
With all of the uncertainty surrounding MLSE president and CEO Tim Leiweke, Nonis, and Carlyle going into the 2014-15 season, the Maple Leafs could be in for a dramatic year off the ice.
The ExtraSkater Effect
The Maple Leafs put a major exclamation mark on the "summer of analytics" when they hired Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds general manager and "fancystats" advocate Kyle Dubas, who then went out and built a super team of nerds by hiring ExtraSkater.com purveyor Darryl Metcalf, Rob Pettapiece, and former theScore contributor Cam Charron.
In Pettapiece and Metcalf, the Maple Leafs' 'Hockey Research & Development' team will boast two intelligent guys with a knack for building and maintaining hockey-related statistical databases. That skill that could come in handy in the coming years if the explosion of hockey-related data collection comes about as anticipated (the league is testing out SportVU-type tracking systems this season, and the plan is to adopt a league-wide system in 2015-16).
In the short-term though it'll be fascinating to see whether or not Toronto's new "being smart" way of operating impacts the on-ice product from a tactical perspective. There's a general belief among analytically hip hockey fans that the Maple Leafs' issues are, at least partly, systems based. If that assumption proves true, then the impact of a small handful of geeks could prove larger than one might reasonably expect.
Goalie Dual
Maple Leafs goaltender Jonathan Bernier outperformed James Reimer by a wide margin in his first year in the Big Smoke. Bernier, a first-time starter, managed an impressive .923 save percentage (.931 at even strength) over 49 starts, and almost single-handedly carried a woeful defensive club to the postseason. Bernier's health didn't hold up, though, and Reimer's play flagged at a critical moment in the Maple Leafs' season.
Going into the 2014-15 season, Bernier is now firmly ensconced as the presumptive number-one guy, while Reimer seems likely to wear a ball cap most nights.
Here's the thing about goaltending performance though: it's extraordinarily volatile. Bernier looked like the man last season, but his NHL resume is still relatively shallow; Reimer was Leafs Nation's favorite goat (non-Dion Phaneuf category), but he's still arguably achieved more at the NHL level than Bernier.
Ultimately the gap in the true talent levels of Bernier and Reimer is probably closer than it might appear from today's vantage point. Consider that, over their careers, Bernier's even-strength save percentage (.927) is virtually identical to what Reimer has managed (.926).
The Maple Leafs' starting job is Bernier's to lose for now, but both goalies are a good bet to provide the club with bonafide starter-quality goaltending. If Bernier falls victim to a bursty hailstorm of goals against while Reimer sparkles once more, this goalie controversy could be reignited yet.