Monday Morning Leafs Report: The biggest (early) sign of change 3 games in

The earliest days of the season are always a little tricky to evaluate.

Three games into 82 for the Toronto Maple Leafs, what the heck is real? And what’s just an early mirage?

Only time will tell.

One major, and potentially important, development so far: The Leafs are rocking it defensively.

Again, it’s only three games — two of which came against not-so-great teams from Montreal and Pittsburgh — but the five-on-five numbers are striking: The Leafs have surrendered just 12 high-danger shot attempts so far and only two — two! — goals.

Goaltending from Anthony Stolarz and Dennis Hildeby has been solid, but their mates sure are making their jobs relatively easy. Just look at how little the Penguins generated from in and around Stolarz’s crease over the weekend compared to the Leafs at the other end.

The Leafs are defending about 38 percent of the time at even strength so far, according to the NHL’s Edge analytics, which ranks in the 81st percentile. That number was over 40 percent last season (56th percentile). Offensive zone time has, as a result, gone up.

Take these per-60 defensive stats with some flaky salt, because it is so early and the opponents were mostly blah, but the improvement is still something:

This team wanted to make a leap defensively this season and thought the additions on defence, Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, would make a big difference.

“I think we can shoot it in the net,” GM Brad Treliving said on the first day of training camp last month. “For us, it’s keeping it out. And I think both from personnel (changes), and I think bringing in Craig and his staff, is going to help us in that regard.

“We’ve got to check better,” he said.

Whatever Berube and company have preached is having an effect. Tanev and Ekman-Larsson have helped immensely in those early efforts.

The Leafs have yet to give up a five-on-five goal when either of their top two pairs — Tanev and Morgan Rielly, Ekman-Larsson and Jake McCabe — have been on the ice. Each pair has yielded just two high-danger attempts on goal in their 30ish minutes.

The combination of Rielly and Tanev with the No. 1 line of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Matthew Knies has been almost flawless; in almost nine minutes (small sample size warning!), the Leafs are outchancing teams 12-3 and winning almost 93 percent of the expected goals. (The other line that’s crushed it so far: Ryan Reaves, David Kämpf and Steven Lorentz. Shots are 12-2 for the Leafs in their 11 minutes, though they’ve been outscored 1-0.)

It’s super-duper early and we’ll see how much this holds, but it’s got to be encouraging for the front office and coaching staff nonetheless.

Points

1. Maybe the most impressive Leaf so far is Ekman-Larsson. He logged a game-high 25 minutes over the weekend against Pittsburgh and took control of the No. 1 power-play unit late in the second to positive effect.

Ekman-Larsson has lined up for a team-leading 15 defensive zone faceoffs at five-on-five; the Leafs are dominating his minutes anyway, outshooting teams 30-16.

2. One very noticeable impact Ekman-Larsson has made offensively: He is shooting the puck every chance he gets. He’s already attempted 21 shots on goal at five-on-five, tops on the team (three more than Matthews, even), and 26 overall.

That helps to explain why suddenly the Leafs look a bit like another Eastern Conference power in terms of their willingness to rip it. “They’re shooting from everywhere,” Canadiens defenceman David Savard said after the opener. “It’s hard to defend. It’s a team that’s a little bit like Carolina because they’re shooting from everywhere.”

So far, the Leafs rank in the 92nd percentile in long-range shots according to Edge.

Last season, they were below the 50th percentile.

It’s not just Ekman-Larsson. Rielly has repeatedly, and purposefully, shot pucks wide of the net in hopes of springing a rebound.

Like here, on Knies’ first goal of the season:

3. What’s so strange about the woes of the No. 1 power-play unit early on: They look like a fivesome that has never played together, when in fact, they’ve perhaps(?) been the most frequently deployed group in the league the last few seasons.

The Leafs have yet to score a single power-play goal this season on nine opportunities. They got their best looks all season in Ekman-Larsson’s first full stint with PP1, a change that’s sure to stick moving forward.

In just 3.5 minutes with Ekman-Larsson and Knies joining Matthews, Marner and William Nylander, the Leafs managed four shots on the power play. That’s equal to what former PP1 (with John Tavares and Rielly) generated in almost double that action in Games 1 and 2.

4. The penalty kill, meanwhile, has looked great at times, but still yielded a goal in every game. The success rate so far: 78.6 percent. Not good.

Kris Letang’s game-opening power-play goal on Saturday spelled the end of Pontus Holmberg’s stint on the top PK unit. Holmberg got all twisted up trying to defend the Letang blast. Lane Lambert swapped in Marner and Matthews for first-unit duty after that.

5. Matthews’ goal-less, point-less start to the season is weird (especially with all the chances he’s generated), but it’s not without precedent. Matthews also went the first three games of the 2021-22 season without a goal or point. His next 70 games: 60 goals and 106 points.

6. One encouraging part of Knies’ start: He’s registered 11 shots on 16 attempts in three games.

It took him 12 games to get to 11 shots last season as a rookie.

His average so far: 3.7 shots per game. Last season: 1.4.

7. Minus Tavares for a night, Berube found something interesting in the combination of Nylander, Max Domi and Nick Robertson. Will the Leafs coach keep that group together and play Tavares with Max Pacioretty and Bobby McMann when the 34-year-old returns from illness? And where would that leave Holmberg? (The combination of Domi, Tavares and Nylander did not work for the second fall in a row.)

Stock watch

Stock up: Matthew Knies

It wasn’t hard to see Knies making a leap coming. He played a career-high 21 minutes on Saturday and is averaging 18.5 minutes per game so far, up substantially from the 13 and change he drew nightly as a rookie.

Knies wanted a role on both special teams units and he’s getting it. He even got a look with PP1 with Tavares not around (and Pacioretty’s stint there ending quickly) and nearly tipped home a goal.

All that work Knies did to improve his footspeed and power appears to be paying off. He looks stronger, faster, harder.

His apparent ascension has made the No. 1 line even a little more intimidating. They are hounding pucks relentlessly. Shot attempts are 54-31 in their minutes, and that’s with an offensive zone faceoff percentage of just 50 percent. (That’ll be something to keep an eye on. The lineup structure is forcing the Matthews group to take a lot of defensive zone draws – too many perhaps.)

Stock down: David Kämpf

Kämpf feels much less essential under Berube.

He’s averaging only 10.5 minutes per game, down from 13.5 last season and 15 and change the year before that. When the Leafs were trying to hold off the Penguins late in regulation over the weekend, Kämpf did not get the call (that is, until Nylander iced the game with an empty-netter).

Steven Lorentz drew the nod and has clearly usurped Kämpf as the team’s go-to trusty defensive forward. Lorentz has also eaten into some of Kämpf’s PK duties. Kämpf was a cornerstone of the No. 1 PK under Sheldon Keefe. It was the one part of his job that never changed — until now.

Holmberg briefly took his gig there before losing it, but it wasn’t Kämpf who retook the role after that — it was Matthews. (Kämpf has been a second-unit guy for the most part.)

On the positive end of things, the Kämpf-led fourth line has been excellent.

But a $2.4 million cap ticket for a 10.5-minute per-game player who isn’t going to provide any offence is not ideal.

Things I Think I Think

While it’s evident, and has been for a while now, that Timothy Liljegren is not a fit for this front office or this head coach, mothballing him as the Leafs have doesn’t feel productive for him or the team.

It wouldn’t seem to help his trade value, for one thing.

The Leafs have essentially told teams Liljegren has no value to them, which would seem to kill any leverage they might otherwise have in trade talks. Any opposing GM with interest in the 25-year-old might well suggest they are doing the Leafs a favour by taking on Liljegren, a No. 8 defenceman currently pulling down $3 million on the cap this year and next.

Liljegren might well become a salary dump at some point.

I’ve never been the biggest Liljegren fan and understand (and kind of agree) with some of the organization’s frustrations with him. But he’s also less than 200 games into his NHL career, and I can see a world in which he’s needed again, what with the age and injury risk of the defence in general as well as the limitations of those like Conor Timmins and Philippe Myers.

Timmins has been on the ice for both of the five-on-five goals scored against the Leafs this season.

The Leafs didn’t have great options with Liljegren in the summer. Looming arbitration had an apparent effect on trade talks. Like the Leafs, opposing teams were apparently reluctant to trade for Liljegren knowing he might fetch a higher number than was ideal in arbitration. But I can’t help wondering why the Leafs signed him at all — using $3 million that could have been spent elsewhere — if this was going to be the path for him.