What I'm about to kick around is not an original thought. Others have raised something like it here.
I looked at it a bit today.
This season, Matthews and Knies play a minute and a half shorthanded per game. Marner 2 mins.
I don't get it. What is the point?
I can see using Marner to score shorthanded when they're down but Matthews only has 2 shorthanded points as a Leaf ever. Knies 1.
Laughton is a good PKer, Did it for years as the #1 Pker in Philly. Kampf isn't terrible at it. Neither is Lorentz. Jarnkrok was good at it for years - including shorthanded pts - if he can get back into game shape .... All win 48% or better of their faceoffs.
Matthews, Marner & Knies getting 1.5 mins/game more at ES or PP would help team scoring.
Giving the other PKers more ice time on the PK will help them improve at that.
I don't get deploying Matthews, Knies & Marner 1.5 mins/game on the PK.
If they're down a goal, Nylander or Robertson could be more effective trying to tie it up on the PK.
Something like that seems to be a better use of the bottom six and helps over all team offense.
I don't understand Berube's thinking on this.
We've had 10 games now since the trade deadline. In that time span the Leaks PK is operating at just 70.4%, which is 28th in the league.
| TOI/GP | CA/60 | GA/60 (GA) | xGA/60 |
| Kampf | 1:43 | 119.01 | 0.00 (0) | 9.81 |
| Marner | 1:37 | 102.86 | 22.04 (6) | 6.43 |
| Matthews | 1:25 | 121.40 | 16.74 (4) | 7.58 |
| Laughton | 1:20 | 94.26 | 17.96 (4) | 6.92 |
| Knies | 1:18 | 128.25 | 4.58 (1) | 10.52 |
| Jarnkrok | 1:06 | 85.53 | 7.78 (1) | 2.97 |
| Lorentz | 0:50 | 92.67 | 0.00 (0) | 4.58 |
Some scattered thoughts
Zero goals against for Kampf in the 7 games he's played there. Not going to give him a "greatest penalty killer on the planet" award for that since goals against is very obviously not an individual statistic but those results should hopefully end this nonsenses of him being a healthy scratch at times.
Marner at 6 goals against is obviously what stands out the most here. That's a lot. The only other forward to be on the ice for more since the deadline is Isac Lundestrom of the Ducks with 8. Similar to what I said about Kampf I'm sure this isn't entirely on Marner especially with his other numbers being low but possibly something to look at if the videos show there's any repeating issues.
Knies' numbers here are just weird. Only been caught on the ice for 1 goal against but seemingly bleeds chances considerably more than anyone else. Even more weird that he's on the ice mostly with guys like Kampf, Jarnkrok, and Lorentz.
One thing that's worth noting about Knies, Jarnkrok, and Lorentz's low goals against numbers is that they spend most of their time out there against a teams 2nd PP unit or at the tail end of a teams 1st PP unit shift. Considering I would imagine most teams are like the Leafs where they load up their top unit and don't see a lot of scoring from PP2 that obviously helps those guys' on-ice numbers a lot. Small note there Lorentz's PK shutout streak still dates all the way back to December 23rd.
What would I change. Well for starters I don't think having Matthews and Marner kill penalties is a bad thing. They've proven to be pretty elite defensive players over their careers and very good penalty killers as well. I don't think them getting a 30-45 second shift per PK is going to kill them. The Panthers last regular season, last playoffs, and this regular season have consistently ran Barkov-Reinhart as their 2nd PK forward unit and it's obviously worked out pretty good there.
The change that the Leafs could and probably should make is in their usage. Last nights game was a good example. For the first 4 penalty killers Matthews and Marner were out for the first shift, and of course got scored on in the 4th one. They didn't go out for the 5th PK because it happened at the end of a shift for them. I don't really get that. Kampf and Laughton's bread and butter has been penalty killing. For most of their careers they've been the top unit option for their teams. It feels kind of painfully obvious that the PK pairs should go Kampf-Laughton (two capable face-off options) to start against the other teams PP1, Matthews-Marner go out to catch the opposition PP1 as their tired or before PP2 can really get set up, and then Lorentz-Jarnkrok to clean up any minutes left after that.
