Our Toronto Maple Leafs forwards rankings for the regular season included the top twelve forwards. We also tracked the numbers for Colin Blackwell and Kyle Clifford as the 13th and 14th forwards. Although we didn’t include their numbers in the rankings, we did acknowledge that their numbers placed them outside the top twelve forwards, in thirteenth and fourteenth place.
In the playoffs, the Maple Leafs used Kyle Clifford for only 25 seconds in Game 1 before he was ejected and subsequently suspended for one game for a major boarding penalty on Tampa Bay Lightning player Ross Colton. Clifford did not dress again for the remainder of the playoffs.
Wayne Simmonds played in two games with a total of 10:40 of ice time. Despite his lack of playing time, we will include him in the rankings for the playoffs, giving us 13 players to rank.
In an attempt to keep this as concise as possible, we once again won’t show the actual stats for each of the six categories we are basing our rankings on. We will just show how each player ranked offensively, defensively, and then overall.
Related: Maple Leafs’ Forwards Ranked for Overall Play – 2021-22 Season
The six categories we’re going to base our rankings on are Shot-Attempts For and Against, Shots For and Against, Scoring-Chances For and Against, High-Danger Chances For and Against, Goals For and Against, and Expected-Goals For and Against, all for five-on-five play, per 60 minutes played.
Overall Ranking Offense By Forwards Playoffs
| Overall Rank | Player | Average Rank |
| #1 | Jason Spezza | 1.8 |
| #2 | Auston Matthews | 2.3 |
| #3 | Mitch Marner | 2.7 |
| #4 | Michael Bunting | 3.7 |
| #5 | Alex Kerfoot | 6.0 |
| #6 | William Nylander | 6.8 |
| #7 | Ondrej Kase | 7.2 |
| #8 | Pierre Engvall | 8.3 |
| #9 | David Kampf | 8.7 |
| #10 | Colin Blackwell | 9.2 |
| #11 | John Tavares | 9.7 |
| #12 | Ilya Mikheyev | 10.5 |
| #14 | Wayne Simmonds | 12.2 |
Overall Ranking Defense By Forwards Playoffs
| Overall Rank | Player | Average Rank |
| #1 | Michael Bunting | 2.5 |
| #2 | David Kampf | 3.0 |
| #3 | Mitch Marner | 3.8 |
| #4 | Auston Matthews | 4.0 |
| #5 | William Nylander | 4.2 |
| #6 Tie | Jason Spezza | 7.0 |
| #6 Tie | Ilya Mikheyev | 7.0 |
| #8 | Pierre Engvall | 7.7 |
| #9 | John Tavares | 8.7 |
| #10 | Ondrej Kase | 8.8 |
| #11 | Alex Kerfoot | 9.0 |
| #12 | Wayne Simmonds | 12.2 |
| #13 | Colin Blackwell | 12.5 |
Overall Ranking Forwards Playoffs
| Overall Rank | Player | Average Rank |
| #1 | Michael Bunting | 3.1 |
| #2 | Auston Matthews | 3.2 |
| #3 | Mitch Marner | 3.3 |
| #4 | Jason Spezza | 4.4 |
| #5 | William Nylander | 5.5 |
| #6 | David Kampf | 7.4 |
| #7 | Alex Kerfoot | 7.5 |
| #8 Tie | Ondrej Kase | 8.0 |
| #8 Tie | Pierre Engvall | 8.0 |
| #10 | John Tavares | 8.7 |
| #11 | Ilya Mikheyev | 8.8 |
| #12 | Colin Blackwell | 10.9 |
| #13 | Wayne Simmonds | 12.2 |
Observations and Conclusions about Maple Leafs Forwards
Michael Bunting
Using advanced statistics, the best Maple Leafs’ forward in the playoffs was Michael Bunting. We know that isn’t true, but these analytics do show that Bunting was a positive influence on the top line and could keep up with Matthews and Marner. Looking at the overall averaging ranking in the righthand column, all three players on that line were very close, only separated by a single decimal point.
We repeat what we stated previously. Bunting gives the Maple Leafs fantastic value for his minimal salary-cap hit. The bad news is if he keeps this up next season they won’t be able to afford him on his next contract.
Auston Matthews
I don’t think we can possibly say much more about Auston Matthews. It might be better to just sit and watch him. We don’t think the Maple Leafs have ever had a player who can do the things that Matthews does.
Related: Auston Matthews Is Better than Leon Draisaitl
Mitch Marner
Mitch Marner is not at the same level as Matthews. He’s not a generational player, and we could argue all day long about whether he is worth his big contract (yet). Still, there’s no denying he’s one of the best players on this team.
Jason Spezza
We know that Spezza’s ice time was limited. He only played a little over 29 minutes at five-on-five in the playoffs and was a healthy scratch the first two games. When he did play, it was almost exclusively fourth-line minutes.
Still, looking at his numbers and how he ranked, it screams that he should have played more. His offensive stas were #1 on the team. His overall rank of fourth, and his average rank of 4.4 were excellent.
William Nylander
Whether you go old school and see that Nylander had seven points in the seven games, or use the analytics to see he was the ranked fifth overall on the team, it shows that Nylander had a good playoffs. His average rank of 5.5 was much better than his average rank of 7.5 in the regular season.
Related: Wayne Gretzky and a Season Like No Other
Part of Nylander’s higher ranking could be his usage. While he was on the second line throughout the regular season, he spent the majority of the postseason on the third line with David Kampf and Pierre Engvall.
Unlike the regular season where Nylander ranked fifth in offense but only 11th in defense, in the playoffs he ranked higher in the defensive stats (fifth) then he did in the offensive numbers (sixth)
David Kampf
David Kampf’s playoff rankings generally reflect his regular-season ranking. In the regular season, he was 12th in offense and third in defense. In the playoffs, he was ninth in offense and second in defense. With Kampf’s lack of offense he is never going to be more than a bottom-six player, but he is definitely a solid third-line center.
Alex Kerfoot
Alex Kerfoot was slightly better in the playoffs with an average ranking of 7.5 compared to 8.0 in the regular season. But, he’s still a top-six forward who is putting up bottom-six analytics. By the numbers, it appears the best spot for Kerfoot would be either centering the third line or as a winger on that line. Unfortunately for the Maple Leafs, they cannot afford to pay a third-line player $3.5 million.
Ondrej Kase
Ondrej Kase’s overall rank of eighth in the playoffs was much better than his rank of 11th in the regular season. But, that ranking was accomplished in a lesser role. In the regular season, Kase spent the majority of his time on the third line.
In the playoffs, he was used exclusively on the fourth line, where it appears he is better suited. If the Maple Leafs do bring him back we feel it needs to be at or near the league minimum salary, with the plan to use him primarily on the fourth line. We don’t know if Kase would be happy with that role though.
Pierre Engvall
Pierre Engvall’s overall rank dropped in the playoffs to eighth place from fifth in the regular season. By the numbers he was not as effective. He was still in the top nine though, which would place him on the third line, right where he was.
John Tavares
John Tavares’ ranking in the playoffs also dropped, to 10th from eighth in the regular season. Part of that could be the fact that for the majority of the playoffs head coach Sheldon Keefe swapped out Tavares’ main right-winger, Nylander, for Mikheyev. Mikheyev did not put up nearly the numbers he did in the regular season. Still, though, we feel that Tavares needs to be better.
Ilya Mikheyev
As a third-line winger in the regular season, Mikheyev put up analytics that were so good he ultimately ranked second overall for Maple Leafs forwards in the regular season. He was rewarded for that by being moved up to the second line for the playoffs. Unfortunately, his numbers as a second-line winger in the playoffs suffered greatly, dropping him all the way to 11th.
Wayne Simmonds and Colin Blackwell
After putting up poor numbers in the regular season, Wayne Simmonds only saw about ten and half minutes of ice time in two playoff games. His stats were not any better in those two games. Colin Blackwell played in all seven games in the playoffs but his statistics were not any better than Simmonds.
Related: Canadiens Strike Gold With Hiring of Marie-Philip Poulin
If the Maple Leafs want to finally take the next step, especially in the playoffs, they need better results from their fourth-line players than either of these players showed this season.
We have now covered our rankings for both the defense and forwards in the regular season and playoffs. All we have left to look at is the goaltenders. The interesting thing to note is that we rank the goalies using the same numbers we do for the skaters.
[Note: I want to thank long-time Maple Leafs’ fan Stan Smith for collaborating with me on this post. Stan’s Facebook profile can be found here.]
The Old Prof (Jim Parsons, Sr.) taught for more than 40 years in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. He’s a Canadian boy, who has two degrees from the University of Kentucky and a doctorate from the University of Texas. He is now retired on Vancouver Island, where he lives with his family. His hobbies include playing with his hockey cards and simply being a sports fan – hockey, the Toronto Raptors, and CFL football (thinks Ricky Ray personifies how a professional athlete should act).
If you wonder why he doesn’t use his real name, it’s because his son – who’s also Jim Parsons – wrote for The Hockey Writers first and asked Jim Sr. to use another name so readers wouldn’t confuse their work.
Because Jim Sr. had worked in China, he adopted the Mandarin word for teacher (老師). The first character lǎo (老) means “old,” and the second character shī (師) means “teacher.” The literal translation of lǎoshī is “old teacher.” That became his pen name. Today, other than writing for The Hockey Writers, he teaches graduate students research design at several Canadian universities.
He looks forward to sharing his insights about the Toronto Maple Leafs and about how sports engages life more fully. His Twitter address is https://twitter.com/TheOldProf