Why the Maple Leafs will miss T.J. Brodie and what he does best

Let’s just start off this post by saying that the Toronto Maple Leafs are not a poor defensive team, at all, despite what often gets talked about on the broadcasts. Since the start of last season, per Natural Stat Trick, the Leafs are seventh in shot suppression, ninth in scoring chance suppression and fifth in goals against. Using only this year’s numbers, the team is eighth best, 11th best and sixth best in those same categories. A lot of ink and pixels tend to be spilled over how the Maple Leafs are going to solve their defensive issues, but in my view, it’s the offence that’s more concerning to me.

That’s not to say things are great on the blue line. With the offence going the way it is, the margins for the Leafs on defence are razor thin. The Leafs’ strong defence is what’s keeping them in games at five-on-five right now, and that’s a tight rope to walk in the modern NHL. With scoring up and no lead safe across the league, it’s difficult for any team to take a lead and employ lock down tactics to hold it. That, coupled with injuries to the two best defensive defencemen on the team right now — T.J. Brodie for the short or medium term, and Jake Muzzin out long term — means that the defensive group is going to have a lot of pressure on them over the next week or so, beginning with tonight’s game against the New Jersey Devils, who lead the NHL in 5v5 goal-scoring rate by a considerable margin.

The Leafs have a tonne of defensive depth: They have already used Victor Mete and Filip Kral this season (and would probably be happy to continue doing so, rather than spend an asset to acquire another piece) and they have Mac Hollowell on the farm as well. The actual difference between any of those three and whichever second- or third-pair defender on another team strikes your fancy is actually quite slim. If the Leafs were to make a splash and trade for somebody on the back end, it would be because they’re acquiring somebody who can make a difference, not unlike the Muzzin trade from a few seasons ago when they shipped what was then an “A” prospect in Carl Grundstrom, a “B” prospect in Sean Durzi and a first-round pick for a player that could immediately be used in a shutdown role.

So, rather than discuss which defenders the Maple Leafs could bring in for short-term help as a replacement for Brodie and Muzzin, I wanted to use this week’s Leafs post to highlight some things that Brodie does very well, or exactly what makes him almost irreplaceable by trade at this point — his ability to retrieve pucks in his own defensive zone and his ability to shut down opposition rushes.

Retrieving pucks

The ability to retrieve pucks in the defensive zone off opposition shoot-ins is an area of relative weakness for the club. When watching the Leafs this season, I track a lot of different microstatistics, including shoot-in recoveries by opposing players. It’s pretty tedious work, but it gives me data similar to what NHL teams have available through companies like Sportlogiq, which record thousands of different events throughout the game, including nearly every touch of the puck. Absent that kind of data, I’m reduced to counting things by hand.

Anyway, with that, one thing I’ve noticed with Brodie this season is how reliable he is when he is the one going into the corner to retrieve a puck. This season, when the opposition has shot the puck in, they’ve recovered to make a play on the puck (however brief) 57 percent of the time, compared to just 55 percent for the Leafs. In my league-wide data set, I have the average dump-in recovery percentage at 54 percent, so both the Leafs and their opponents are above average in being able to beat defenders to the puck, or force turnovers off the breakout.

When Brodie goes back to retrieve the puck however, the Leafs prevent the opposition from recovering the puck more often than not. Opponents get the puck just 49 percent of the time when Brodie goes back there, compared to 64 percent for the remainder of the Leafs defence group. He’s simply far and away better than any other defender on the Leafs in this regard, especially once you consider that Brodie typically faces the best competition on the opposition on a near-nightly basis.

The kind of poise that Brodie has when retrieving a puck is rare. His passes will usually be crisp and he won’t panic and send the puck to an open corner away from danger, but will usually make the right play for the situation. To illustrate, here are a couple of clips from last week’s win against Boston, when the Leafs were leading by a goal and looking to lock the game down.

First, with just one forechecker coming at him, Brodie zips a hard pass up the wall, where Marner has provided enough support. Marner bumps it to Tavares, and the Leafs exit the defensive zone cleanly and without any drama. The speed of the pass ensures that no other Bruin is able to join David Pastrnak on the forecheck and the Leafs are able to escape the zone before the Bruins are even all in it. The play is incredibly simple, just a quick shoulder check followed by a hard pass.

This next play here looks incredibly simple, but you may be surprised at how often players can turn an obvious clear into a turnover. Taylor Hall shoots the puck in and charges straight at Brodie, who simply picks up the puck and takes all the time he has, and at the very last second, flips the puck high and down the ice. Not far enough for icing, but far enough to ensure it will be another 10 seconds before the Bruins can attempt another offensive zone entry, with just 90 seconds to go in the game.

This one against Philadelphia from earlier in this season is a little more impressive than the first two, because it results in a goal. Again, Philadelphia sends a single forechecker into the zone (they were changing behind the play) but Nic Deslauriers, who isn’t the top competition that Brodie typically faces, mind you, still takes a route to the puck that forces Brodie to think quick. Rather than continue along with his backhand behind the boards, Brodie recognizes Deslauriers is coming from the other side, reverses, and makes a quick pass to David Kampf, who provides close support. The Leafs then break out and score a goal within seconds. It’s a beautiful team goal that’s immensely satisfying because so many things went right on the play, but it all begins behind the Leafs net.

These are not very pretty plays and don’t ever make the Sportscentre Top 10 list. Moving the puck out of the defensive zone quickly and efficiently has a lot of positive benefits, though. Not only are you preventing the opposition from scoring, but if you can move the puck out quickly enough and avoid forecheckers, you can turn a defensive sequence into an offensive one, as the Leafs have done in this third clip.

Defending the rush

I’ve talked about controlled zone entries in this space before, with the idea that when a team crosses the offensive blue line with control of the puck, they are about three times as likely to generate a scoring chance than if they dump the puck in. Generally, we talk about controlled entries as being something mainly controlled by the forward, but when I count zone entries as part of my tracking project, I also record which defender was responsible for the side of the ice that the opposition player has entered on. This is a concept called “entry defence” which is one tool we have in the toolbox to determine just how good a player is at the defensive end — since a good defensive play is the absence of a good offensive play, it’s difficult to measure defence, since good defensive plays never happen. The alternative is to measure good offensive plays and see which defensive players allow the least of them.

We can look at entry defence through two different lenses: The first is how often did opponents enter with control against a particular player, out of all the attempted entries against him? When it comes to the Leafs and T.J. Brodie, we find that Brodie, despite playing more often against tough forwards (who are far more likely to attempt to gain the blue line with control than depth forwards), actually stops more controlled entries against than any other player on the Leafs except Rasmus Sandin. When attacking players attempt to enter against Brodie, they are successful 49 percent of the time, compared to 54 percent of the time against the rest of the Leafs group. This doesn’t seem like a huge margin, but consider that the other defenders on the Leafs that consistently play against top competition are much worse in this regard: Justin Holl has allowed a controlled entry against him 55 percent of the time, Morgan Rielly 60 percent and Jake Muzzin 62 percent.

The second lens we can use to measure entry defence: Once an opponent gains the line with control, how often do they generate a scoring chance? This is an important question to look at since it is possible that some defenders, in allowing the opposing forward to skate into the zone with control, do so to prevent them from gaining inside position and taking a shot from closer to the net, or making a pass across the ice to a teammate for a good shot. Basically, which defenders are best able to contain attackers and prevent them from generating offence? It turns out, of course, that Brodie excels in this regard as well. On average, when a player gains the offensive zone with control against a Leaf defender, they create 0.28 scoring chances per offensive zone entry, which is slightly lower than the NHL average of 0.30. Against Brodie, however? Just 0.15 scoring chances per controlled entry against, or half the league average, while playing usually against the best forwards the opposition has to offer.

I’ve clipped a sample of his work so far this season.

First, here he is in Carolina. Martin Necas is carrying the puck in the neutral zone and crosses over the centre lane to enter the attacking zone on the left side of the ice. Since Jesperi Kotkaniemi, the other Hurricanes forward in the rush, moves off the right wing wall, Brodie recognizes that he’s able to play Necas a bit more aggressively than he would if Kotkaniemi were available as a passing option. Before Necas can make a drop pass to Kotkaniemi once they’re over the line, Brodie swats at the puck, and the Leafs are able to regain control of the puck quite easily.

Later in the game, the Leafs have difficulty getting a handle of the puck in the neutral zone, thanks to the aggressive nature of Carolina’s style of play. Seth Jarvis picks up the loose puck and enters the zone against Brodie, who recognizes how little support Jarvis has from his teammates. This means Brodie can close on Jarvis quickly, and when Jarvis attempts a pass to the middle of the ice intended for Jordan Martinook, it’s easily swatted away and the Leafs regain possession in the neutral zone.

Finally, against Vegas, a team that has given the Leafs fits off the rush in both their games against them this season, the Golden Knights break into the attacking zone four wide, led by Jonathan Marchessault who has the puck and, after attempting a pass that hits Reilly Smith’s feet, regains the puck and carries the puck across the line. Since Marchessault bobbled it, Brodie again recognizes his chance to attack the puck carrier, closing quickly at the line rather than giving Marchessault space to work with. This slows Marchessault up enough for William Nylander to come in, backcheck, and end the immediate threat Vegas had off the rush (Nylander banks the puck out of the zone and Vegas re-enters offside at the end of the clip).

Back to the big picture

This post has told us nothing we don’t already know: T.J. Brodie is an excellent defenceman who does a lot of little things right that help his team prevent opposition scoring chances, and help his own team generate them. We also know the team is going to miss him in the medium term while he’s out with an oblique injury, and won’t return for at least two weeks.

But what this should also highlight is the type of player, or at least how effective a player needs to be to crack that Maple Leafs top four. The team likely won’t bring in anybody to play a pure defensive role that can only slot in on the third pair (note that Jordie Benn, who has been in the lineup for just two games, has played almost all of his time alongside Rielly, not on the third pair). That third pair role for the Leafs is more suited to more offensive-minded players such as Sandin. Many of their shifts are taken in the offensive zone with Auston Matthews on the ice, which explains why nearly every permutation winds up with a Corsi For Percentage of something close to 55 percent.

If the team does look for a Muzzin replacement, though, it will need to be a player that can essentially do what’s highlighted above. They’ll need a player of a similar calibre, who can do it against tough matchups, that is also a clear upgrade over Holl (which isn’t as easy as it sounds. For all his faults, Holl is roughly league average in terms of entry defence and scoring chance suppression, doing so usually against pretty good opponents. In addition, 64 percent of his defensive zone exits come with control, which is the highest percentage among regular Leafs defencemen). There’s no immediate need to make a move, even with the schedule stacked the way it is over the next two weeks. The team is going to have to suck it up and get good efforts from Benn and Mark Giordano, each playing a little higher in the lineup than they probably should be.

Brodie’s play exhibits the types of skills that I personally value in defencemen. While it’s easy to be drawn to the defenders that make big hits and clear the crease, playing with poise and intelligence is a little more important in this era of hockey. Doing small, nearly invisible things well in sequence, such as connecting on a hard pass or making a stick check that slows down the opposition, can help lead your team to really good results.

(Photo: Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)