Don't look now, but Leafs Nation now has another reason to be frustrated with William Nylander

Hitting is a hot button topic for many hockey fans. Some believe that having the hardest-hitting team is more important than the most skilled one. Others believe throwing big hits is a useless tactic that only puts players out of position. Personally, I believe physicality is an important part of the game, especially in the playoffs, but that skilled players are the ones who will ultimately win the game for you.

Since Kyle Dubas took over the Leafs, they've been painted as a soft team. While that may have been true before, the Leafs GM has added toughness and physicality to the lineup in recent years.

JFresh Hockey, an account dedicated to making sense of hockey stats and analytics, posted a collection of stats projections for hitting in the NHL this upcoming season. The projections list the top and bottom of the league for hits thrown, hits taken, and hits thrown per hit taken. They also posted the same stats for forwards and defensemen as separate lists. These stats offer some interesting insights into why certain things seems to happen around certain Leafs players.

So, where do the Leafs land? Well, out of 377 NHL forwards, William Nylander is projected to finish this season 370th in hits/60. Not exactly a shock based on his play style.



What was surprising was defensive stalwart TJ Brodie landing at 200 out of 204 defensemen in the same stat. Perhaps part of what makes Brodie so good defensively is simply the fact that he doesn't sacrifice his position to throw a hit.


Closer to the top of the list for the Leafs are Wayne Simmonds and newcomer Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who landed at 20 and 24 on the hits/60 list, respectively. The Leafs don't have a defenseman in the top 25 for hits/60. Recently departed UFA Ilya Lyubushkin did make the list, however, 18th in the league at 8.4 hits/60. Obviously Simmonds and Aube-Kubel are there to make life miserable for opponents. It also helps to explain why Kyle Dubas made Aube-Kubel a priority to sign when free agency opened.


What's more interesting to me is the hits taken/60 stat, where Justin Holl sits 5th and Jake Muzzin sits 14th. Neither Holl or Muzzin are particularly strong skaters, nor are they efficient puck movers. The fact that they spend a lot of time as a pairing is concerning. Both in terms of team success and keeping Muzzin healthy. It would be a shame to break up the pairing of Mark Giordano and Timothy Liljegren, but swapping partners with Holl and Muzzin may help balance out the Leafs D core better if they wind up keeping Holl.


One non-Leafs related stat that caught my eye was the fact that both Keith Yandle and Phil Kessel are among the lowest hits taken/60 and the lowest hits thrown in the league. It seems the key to having a long and injury free career is simply "don't get hit" and "don't throw hits".



Hitting may not be the deciding factor when it comes to winning a game or a playoff series, but it's abundantly clear that the physical side of the game can have much larger implications than many will admit. I'd love to see the Leafs be a more physical team, but there's no way I'd trade away skilled players just to bring in more hitting. The key, in my opinion, is team toughness and player buy-in. It's not a trade or a signing, it's an attitude and a culture that needs to be cultivated in the dressing room and on the ice. The Leafs have shown glimpses of it, especially in their first round series against Tampa, but they'll need to find more if they want to go more than 7 games into the playoffs this season. That buy-in will have to come from players like William Nylander as well.