Despite his recent play I feel like Matt Frattin's hot start has been a little overshadowed by the media's attention to Phil Kessel's slow start. (Probably because they enjoy bashing the leafs so much.) Frattin sits tied for 9th (with 9 other players) with 6 goals. Some people might say small sample size, we're only 11 games in etc. but I think they're also forgetting the circumstances that hes achieved this. Frattin in his 8 games has averaged 12:38 of ice time.1 Nobody with 6+ goals even comes close to spending so little time on the ice. The person with 2nd least amount of ice time with 6 goals is Couture at 17:09. 1

Add in that he has 6 goals in 8 games. Staal has 6 goals in 9 games and everyone else in this group has played 10/11 games.

I think I've made a pretty good case that Frattin's start hasn't just been "hot". James van Riemsdyk and Frattin have pretty well put the Leafs on their backs to get us above the big .500 to start the season. I'd write about JVR but he has had a longer NHL career, has played more games and gets considerable more ice time not to bash his good start. I simply wanted to point out that Frattin has not been hot he's been damn amazing.

So far I like Carlyle's personality more than our last few coaches. But I'm not so sure about his strategy. You would think a team would tend to play they're players that are hot more. Why not ride their good luck out? Following you will find his time on ice, courtesy of hockey-reference.com. Looking at his TOI, Carlyle has not given him any extra playing time. I don't consider myself an expert on all things hockey but I find this perturbing.

Frattin TOI:

Taken From: http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/f/frattma01/gamelog/2013/

Note: This is my first Fanshot, sorry for the loose presentation/writing!

(1) – taken from nhl.com