Tuesday's FTB: Your job is to click the linked article

Instead of listing off some news items, today is a one-link FTB.

I want to say upfront that Justin Bourne has a fanbase that likes that he talks a little stats-y but not too stats-y. He is a former player, and he talks like a former player. I don't always like his articles or, on the rare occasions I watch, his panel participation, and he used to be so very wrong online about William Nylander it was painful to witness.

Just because I'm not his number one fan, though, doesn't mean this article isn't worth your time. Now, if what you want is a rabble rousing number to light your pitchforks by, you're in the wrong place. This article, even with its listicle headline, is not that simple.

I don't like or agree with everything, and some of that is stylistic – you have to take a firm position on things in sports media, and you can't really admit you aren't sure about something. And some of my dislike comes from a thing that just drives me up the wall. Someone uses a trivia number and then bangs on about how it's not actually proving anything, but hey, it fits the narrative I like so...

At least it isn't plus/minus.

But there is a long bit about Auston Matthews, where Bourne is sure, no doubts and his buds know it too, that Matthews is in physical decline, and then he uses some Edge trivia about max skating speed and various other bullshit – sorry it is – to flesh out what is an eye-test. Have the courage to just say it's what you think when you watch! Maybe you're right, Bourne, but the stats the NHL gives you don't mean anything at all.

I can't tell you that Auston Matthews is the same as he was when he was 25. I do know he's an elite player, and he actually did better at some of the meaningful measures of play beyond goal scoring last year when he was obviously seriously injured than he is right now. So no, I don't buy that what's going on is some physical diminution and nothing else.

Mixed in with that is some points-based analysis – one of my other favourites – that is a thrice-damned WOWY that fails to take into account that Matthews' without Marner stats are with Nylander... I mean. Come on we have ancient creaky articles here from the days Bourne was calling Nylander a perimeter player showing that either winger and it was all good. This WOWY does not illustrate that Auston Matthews is impervious to teammate effects. Some of his issues this season may actually be playing with third liners as wingers half the time. But it's not just that.

Sorry, I'm complaining too much, and I actually do like this article, but the things I didn't like, I really didn't like and they're all clustered at the top. Eventually Bourne brought up the one thing Edge is good for:

I also want to pause and marvel at the idea that sports is still a place where people think eye-testing time is in any way rational. And Edge won't even give you the goddamned numbers. But the percentiles work okay.

This should not be news to you all, but look again, at last year and this year. Look again at the last year with Keefe as coach (when the Leafs were starting to drift towards bad percentages).

This is entirely new this season.

Once off the Matthews issue, and it is a very, very legitimate issue, just one that seems* to be working out as we go along, the attention turns to this one neat trick that you can use to beat the Leafs.

*Everyone else gets to reason from seeming, I'm doing it too.

That one neat trick is to stand around in your own zone, waiting for that sound of horking you hear and know what's coming. No, not a hairball on the carpet, it's the puck coughed up for a rush chance against. He's got a clip from the Bruins game where he is calling out Matthews for what he calls "junior hockey stuff".

And okay, that Bruins game was really hard to watch and I got fed up, but while I still was mostly paying attention, I saw this guy just on the Leafs puck-carrier along the boards in the Leafs zone. He just would not let up on the guy – sorry I didn't notice who – and he took the puck off him like the guy was a rookie about to get sent down and sailed up-ice with it, and holy shit, that was Fraser Minten.

And then I watched Minten. And then I remembered every word of his that I quoted in his last T25 profile where I let him give a master class in realizing you aren't the best guy on the team, that you have to work hard at other aspects of the game, you can't just rely on scoring some goals, and you can't play like you do in junior. And then there was Minten PKing for the Bruins. And then there was the Leafs. Doing what they do.

Easton Cowan has a lot of Minten's attitude in him – well Fraser is his landlord, best friend and mentor along with John Tavares, so that's natural. But it's missing in the Leafs of this past weekend. All of them. In case you think I'm talking about scoring wingers, mostly I'm talking about some of the defencemen. And Auston Matthews some of the time, and yeah, Nylander too. He's got the gloss of all those goals to make up for some of his junior hockey bullshit, but it's there in his game too. And there are real numbers to back that up.

See, this is the problem. If you measure players as either good or bad then you can always have an argument ready. Nylander isn't bad! Nope, he isn't, but he also isn't playing as well as last year's Nylander or as well as he can game-in, game-out. Watch him on the bench when it all blows up in his face, and he gets steamed. He knows! It's okay to notice this. It's okay to say that the players are not executing anything like a coherent game of hockey.

So what we have is players who are good, very good, excellent etc. who are not reliable, aren't playing the way they can all the time and their names include Morgan Rielly and Brandon Carlo, Bobby McMann and Matt Knies. Meaningful, big minute players.

So far this season, the Leafs are 31st in “rushes against per game” (at five-on-five) and 32nd in rush goals against per game (via Sportlogiq). They give up a goal on the rush at a pace of, call it roughly one per game.

Last season, they were eighth in rush chances against, and fourth in rush goals against. (They’ve given up 15 of them this season, with just 34 all of last season.)

Again, this is compared to last year, when the team had the same coach and same systems.

Some other highlights:

Bourne calls the bottom six purposeless, and lays that at the door of the line blender which he does in an even-handed way, recognizing that there's a feedback loop here of players who don't succeed get a changed assignment so the player is adrift and the coach can't find a combination that works. Maybe there isn't one.

I can go on at length about my preference for a serious shut-down third line that can play variable minutes depending on game situation, and there are some glimmers that such a thing can be formed out of the players on the roster. One problem, Nic Roy has been a giveaway machine, bad at puck management and kind of flakey. Bourne namechecks David Kämpf, and while I think he's on the outs because his negative impact on offence is just too much for a guy who also doesn't play a physical game most of the time, I actually considered it seriously. For a minute.

I think Bourne is on the money with the problem of Simon Benoit, and also how short the list is of reliable defenders who play well most of the time. In the back of my mind sits the fact that Chris Tanev was not actually very good prior to his first injury. It's an open question what he will end up giving to the team this year.

Read the whole thing. I think his conclusion is such good writing it should have led off the article. Think about it.

What Bourne describes is a team where no one knows what the other guy is about to do. No coach is telling NHLers to do the things the Leafs are doing. They are drifting away from the system – however imperfect it certainly is – and relying on their basic instincts and that's why an honest read of this season sees echoes from past seasons. Over and over again as another rush chance against sails past or the defence breaks down in front of the net.

This team is full of elite skill. They were last year too, and they are the same guys – mostly – who took Florida to the limit. But they don't play like they remember that or they're all that interested in trying it again.

Bruins again today. We'll see how this goes.

From The Branches