It's no secret that the Leafs have a bad penalty kill. In fact, it's beyond bad. Before tonight's game the Leafs sit dead last at a 69.4% kill rate. What's worse is that this isn't a new problem. Keith Acton and Tim Hunter were fired because of the horrendous special teams over the past few years. Specifically, the Leafs have finished 28th, 30th, and 30th in PK since Ron Wilson arrived. Scott Gordon and Greg Gronin were supposed to solve this problem (because presumably RW had nothing to do with the PK????). But sadly, here we are...

Previously, I've tried to make the case that coaching is the problem (as opposed to goalies), but with the poor PK persisting despite the change to the coaching staff (aside from the head honcho), it starts appearing less likely that coaching is to blame. So, when Chemmy posted about our special teams, Burtch made this argument:

I think a lot of that is probably our goaltending… Reimer’s got an .808 SH SV%, and Gustavsson has a .783 SH SV%. That’s not very good (53rd and 56th in the NHL respectively – out of ALL goalies 3SA).

Indeed, those numbers aren't very good. But as with all great correlations, we have a cause-and-effect problem: Is bad goaltending the cause of the crummy PK, or is the abysmal PK causing the goalies' SV% to go down? 

While I'm not sure whether Gabe or Tom Awad or others have looked at this before, I decided to run my own analysis. After the jump: simple stats and charts. 

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via www.thedailypage.com

Backstory: About 6 months ago I moved to the great city of Madison, Wisconsin. While I was dismayed to leave Toronto, my beloved Maple Leafs, and my motherland behind, I was happy to have a Maple Leaf-Wisconsin connection, and to be heading to the birthplace of Phil Kessel.

Because of the availability heuristic, I've also noticed what I think is a pattern in recent acquisitions made by Brian Burke. While others have argued that Burke has been preferentially acquiring Americans (something I'm sure is a myth), it seems like in fact his goal is to acquire every NHL player with a connection to Wisconsin. See the full details after the jump:

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With all the dust settling after the free-agent frenzy, there have been some debates as to what the best strategy is come July 1. Specifically, some have criticized the Leafs generally and Brian Burke specifically for not trying hard enough to recruit top-end free agents (in particular, Brad Richards). 

Now, as some of you may know, I actually have a PhD in psychology. While that doesn't make me a particular worthwhile member of society, it does make me interested in the psychological factors that contribute to success in hockey, such as working memory span, or, more relevantly, incentives.

It has often been discussed as well that players who are ready to hit free agency may try extra hard that last year, so as to land big $$$. In other words, in the year before hitting free agency, players have a huge incentive to perform well. After they sign a big contract, however, the incentive disappears. What this means, of course, is that free agents may not be worth in the future what they were in the past. 

Now while this issue has been discussed a lot, I could think of no place where the numbers have been crunched. So, I decided to have a look at the numbers myself to see exactly how free agents perform before and after signing a big contract. 

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Editor's Note: Here's an excellent post by Van Ryn's Neurologist on save percentage.

As I'm sure we all remember, the Leafs played St. Louis on Thursday night. They had a 3-goal cushion early in the third, and then everything fell to pieces. Jonas Gustavsson looked, well, Toskala-esque. He had trouble seeing the puck. He had trouble finding the puck. Hell, he even had trouble touching the puck when it was sitting right in front of him. Clearly, he looked rattled. By the end of the night, he had posted a .886 SV%, slightly below his season average of .896, and well below what most would consider "good" goaltending. 

Then on Friday, James Reimer, during a 9-3 routing of the Atlanta Thrashers, looked poised (yeah, I said it). He looked calm. He looked sturdy. He looked like a quality NHL goaltender. And he had the.932 SV% to prove it, as well as 2 wins in his last 3 starts, and a very respectable 1.87 GAA to go with it. 

The large discrepancy in SV% had many painting Gustavsson (and Giguere) as a major problem in our first half struggles. Most of this argument hinges on his low SV%. If he would only stop more pucks, the theory goes, we would win more games.

Now, I'm not trying to advocate that Gustavsson should be given the start over Reimer in the next few weeks. I think Reimer has done an outstanding job so far and should continue to carry the workload until he proves he can't handle it. And Gustavsson likey is a little shaken lately, and probably needs some rest, coaching, or both. 

But, as I described in my last FanPost, save percentage has very little impact on number of wins. Other factors, such as 5-on-5 goals for/against and PK%, seem to play a much larger role in determining whether a team wins or not. (Scoring 5 PP goals sure doesn't hurt, either).

So why all the fuss about SV%? And surely SV% does mean something. But what? 

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Jonas Gustavsson Needs To Be More Mostrous

Editor's Note: This is an interesting FanPost by Van Ryn's Neurologist. By the time you are done reading it your brain might have melted. Basically, Ron Wilson might need to start updating his resume.

Mired in yet another mini-funk, there's been a lot of negativity floating around the Barilkosphere in the last 24 hours. Much of this has been directed towards Jonas Gustavsson. Specifically, there's been some suggestion that goaltending has been a bigger issue than other aspects of the Leaf's performance (defense, scoring, coaching,etc). 

Now, while I admit that The Monster's performance has been more diminutive of late, as a former goalie, it upsets me to see him slandered when, to my eyes, there are much bigger problems to deal with. 

So, I decided to look at some numbers. Now some of this gets a little complicated, so for those of you who aren't numerically inclined I apologize. Editor's Note: This is an understatement. Even if you are kind of numerically inclined this is going to get complicated. I think. I couldn't really figure it out.

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After starting the season with four straight wins, the Leafs of this year looked like they were going to be much improved over last. The goaltending was better. The "culture" in the dressing room was supposedly different. There were even some changes in the systems, most notably allowing the players to use only one hand on their stick during the penalty kill. 

Since that point, however, the Leafs have gone 1-5-3, a point-percentage of just 28%. A dismal performance.

One of the key problems in the losing stretch is the lack of offense. This has been touched upon ad nauseum, and was in fact, a known problem heading into the season. The important question becomes, though, how can we change it? How can we turn loses into wins? 

Ron Wilson has his own ideas. Here's what he had to say after Saturday's loss to Buffalo about the lack of offense from our top line of Kessel, Bozak, and Versteeg:

They're not producing any offence and in fact their effort is a little off. They don't get any offence because they're basically not working hard enough defensively. 

Now, there's a case to be made here. At times, the entire team has seemed to like effort and a sense of urgency. 

However, hasn't this been Ron Wilson's answer to every problem the Leafs have had? Worst PK in the league? Players need to be better. Worst goals against? Goalie needs to be better. Rookies struggling? They need to be better (duh!). 

At some point, isn't it the coaches job to make the team better? To take the players he has, and improve them -- or at least, exploit their talents, and minimize their weaknesses? 

Now, I'm among those who have been pushing for Ron Wilson to be fired for  a long time, and every time I bring it up, I'm met with opposition, usually with some legitimate arguments. Most notably, that it's too early in the season to heap blame on the coach, that the losses add up to bad efforts and bad bounces, not bad coaching.

The question isn't whether Ron Wilson is or isn't a good coach. The question is, will replacing Ron Wilson improve our record? If the answer is "yes", obviously, we should do it as soon as possible. But how can we know? This got me to thinking, maybe there's some historical evidence to shed some light on this issue.

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So far I've used individual GVTs to examine the player additions and subtractions to each team. This is all aimed at answering the question "will we make the playoffs next year?" First, lets take a look at the changes the Leafs have made (so far):

Toronto Maple Leafs

Key Additions:

Key Subtractions:

Now, here is where the details get important. In part I I explained that I would include every departure from a team, with the assumption that any player who leaves a team leaves their impact behind. Well, given the number of players traded last season, this means a departure of a significant number of impact players. Specifically, with the departures of White, Ponikarovsky, Hagman and Stajan, we lose our #2, 3, 6, and 7th most impactful players from last season. The only players to have more of an impact than White were Kessel and Kaberle, who may also be gone soon.

However, what you'll also notice at the bottom is the large, statistically anomalous -15.3 GVT for Vesa D.S. Toskala. If you haven't seen the numbers yourself, Toskala's GVT last season was worse than any other player. A lot worse. Thus, simply by not having Toskala lace up for us this season, we probably get a lot better. In the meantime, however, we also lost a lot of good help up front. How can we make up this loss?

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In Part II of these posts, I will use my method outlined in Part I to examine how a team did in the off season, and where we can expect them to be next year.

Atlanta Thrashers

Key Additions:

Key Subtractions:

Atlanta is the team that lost the most this off-season, while adding very little of value. The losses of Hedberg, Kovulchuk, means that they lose almost 10 GVTs than they gain with the additions of Mason, Ladd, and (a relatively ineffective) Byfuglien. Most people probably put them at last in the league for this season, but will the numbers agree?

*some of these players are RFAs that have not been signed yet. I'm assuming it will happen.

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Lets face it: the off-season is no fun at all. Sure, there's the draft (draft schmaft) and the free-agent frenzy, plus the occasional contract veto by the NHL, but really it's mostly a whole lot of waiting around for the puck to drop again. This is especially true for us Leafs fans, as we await anxiously to see whether next year will be the year we make our glorious return to the playoffs.

Well, I got tired of waiting, and decided to do an in-depth analysis of the off-season moves in the Eastern Conference, and try to make a few predictions for next year.

So, I present to you my 2010 Predictions, in 3 parts. In Part I, I will explain my logic, and how I've assessed the moves made to each team in the Eastern Conference. In Part II, I will examine all of the off-season moves for the 14 other teams in the conference (the competition). Finally, in Part III I will examine the Leafs' off-season moves, and compare these moves to the others in the conference.  After the jump, Part I:

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Let's get this straight: I am no fan of the Canadiens. Can't stand em!

But I'm really happy they went deep into the playoffs. I could have even been happy if they got into the finals (so long as they lost in the end).

Why, you wonder?

Because some fool will take this run as an indication that the current line-up is a team to build around for future success.

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I've had a fractured relationship with sport at points in my life. I grew up both extremely smart and very athletic as a kid. My parents naturally pushed me more in athletics than in academics. By the time I was 16, I hated any form of organized sport, mostly because of the mysogynistic, homophobic, troglodytes that were my teammates. By the time I moved away to attend the University of Toronto, I had completely lost interest in hockey, pursuing my interests in other forms of culture, both high and low.

A few years on, I started to feel more comfortable with my varied personalities, just at the same time I started to think about what it meant to be Canadian. Naturally, I regained an interest in hockey, and now consider myself a bigger fan of the sport than I have at any point in my life.

Here are my five reasons I love hockey:

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Editor's Note: Van Ryn's Neurologist takes a look at the progression of Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin's produciton this season.

There has been a lot of debate this season about how the two first round and one second round pick that Brian Burke paid for Phil Kessel. As we all know, Kessel came out of the gates strong this season, but went on a long dry spell. He's now getting hot again, which made me wonder what his stats look like over time compared to other top-notch players in the league (the kind we would have no problems paying those picks for). Luckily, my ESPN fantasy league has a feature that allows you to graphically compare stats between two players. The results are sometimes interesting, sometimes surprising.

I chose Malkin for three reasons:

1. Kessel and Malkin have a similar number of goals
2. Malkin obviously plays on a far better team, with far better players around him, so I wanted to see how Kessel would match up
3. Malkin is an 'elite', young player, that people have debated as being better than Crosby, so obviously has great value.

Remember, Kessel didn't play his first game until November 3rd, but Malkin has only played 4 more games than Kessel. Obviously, Kessel also didn't have a training camp or a pre-season.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give to you Kessel vs. Malkin: 

Goals:

It's pretty clear from this graph that Malkin and Kessel are quite comparable in this stat. In fact, before Kessel played a single game, Malkin had scored 4 goals, but Kessel beat him to the 12 goal mark, scoring at a great pace. Kessel's production dropped off late December/early January, but he seems to be scoring at a better pace again. I wouldn't be surprised if Kessel ends up with more goals than Malkin in most seasons, especially if he can get a premier set-up C. 

Poll

How well is Kessel producing this year?

18%

He's proving himself an elite player in the league.

111 votes

55%

He's doing well, considering the guys he plays with.

334 votes

11%

He's doing OK, but my expectations are higher.

69 votes

14%

Screw the picks. Kessel FTW!

88 votes

602 votes | Poll has closed

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