OverDrive - Johnson on Woll's significance in the crease, the Maple Leafs' plummeting power play and Hellebuyck's strong season

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

TSN Hockey Analyst Mike Johnson joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the NHL, the Maple Leafs and Stars' matchup, the team's power play issues in the spotlight, Joseph Woll's role in the crease, the tandem choices in Toronto and more.

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Let's go. New year, new you. New you. New you. Explore it all. Feel brand new. At iHeartRadio.ca and on the free iHeartRadio app. Joining us here on the Maple Toyota Hotline, here's our TSN hockey analyst Mike Johnson. Johnny, what do you make of that Hellebuck McKinnon dry saddle on Fanduil tied at plus

360 to win the heart? I like it. I like the fact that they're throwing Hellebuck in recognizing how special his year is. I like the fact that they're not ignoring how good Dry Settles has been in many ways with the goal differential more deserving to win it right now than McDavid, even though they're the same team. And you think about who the Oilers, like McDavid plays with, you know, Hyman and Nugelot. Dry Settles play like, hard Coles in and Arvids in,

and still racking up the goals. So yeah, I like that you can bring in five on five goals versus McKinnon's got a boatload of empty net points. And just food for thought, whoever said Quinn Hughes. So they can do these like, fancy equation, O's favorites, but like the wind above replacement for hockey, they're not that precise,

but it's just one way to look at it. And you're right, like Ranton is a top seven guy and McDavid's a top seven guy Hallibucks a guy in his island but he also has Shifeley Morrissey and Connor all the top 25 the next best Canuck is Connor Garland in this in the one I just looked at he's like down in like 80 90 so to suggest Quinn Hughes is as important as any of them that's not that tough an argument to make do you think hella bucks fix it out amongst those guys which i think he should and i know another guy that's on the show quite often who

thinks he should or is it just we recognize in this guy and he'll fade off after a couple months i mean if hella buck and i'm being leader in wins, shutout, gold against a percentage and the Jets are in first or something close to it, I don't know how you don't. I don't know how you can't give him the MVP. I know I'm well on record as being gold centers need a particularly great year beyond just sort of measuring up against the positional

players because of the nature of their position. They need Kerry Price, they need Dominik Hasek or maybe even Jose. I'm not sure he deserved to win it when he did but you know you need to do something out of the norm. It feels like Hellebuck might be doing that this year if he's able to end the year sort of at the top of every major statistical category including team success. I don't know how you don't give it to him johnny i'm curious your answer to this and i know you like to dive into the analytics and as a professional analyst and broadcaster i'd love to know the answer

what is your analytical take on the lease power play like analytically what are you seeing and how would you fix it and so it's interesting all i've spent like literally three days sort of Rusing all kinds of different numbers about this and trying to understand what is going on there So the first thought I had Oh was well Maybe they're not spending as much time in the offensive zone, right? Like you know, it's not getting in there and not getting secondary pucks compared to last year. That was a negative They are like to the percentage point,

the exact same 0.63% of every power play they spent in the offensive zone. Same as last year. So exactly the same. Then I looked, Oh, it's like literally I've did this last three days. I'm like, well, maybe guys are shooting puck disproportionately, right? Like maybe Matthews is not shooting it as much and maybe Marner shooting it more. Like maybe there's something there and other than to a Nylander being down a little bit I lost is a Lot a little I mean, it's about that was

He's gone from like 27% of like of all the shots they took together Yeah, versus like he's down to like 21. So it's significant That's like a 25% drop 30% drop, but it's not it wasn't enough to send off any alarm bells to me So so, you know, I'm kind of like was that is that it They're not that far off. I mean, they're not 30% anymore, but they're not that far off I think what it is though is that they are a little bit stagnant up top. And, you know, I don't think shooting blindly is the answer, because I don't necessarily buy into, like, get a guy who can hammer the puck from the top and let,

whether it's Morgan Rowley, Mitch Pardoe... What is shooting blindly though? Explain that to me. Like just, so like, get in the umbrella, right? So like the 1-3-1, so you have Marner up the top, you have Matthews on one side, Neal on the other, and you have Tavarez and Nides in front of the umbrella, right? So like the one three one. So you have Marner up the top. You have Matthew's on one side and neither on the other. You got Taveras and Nides in front of the net, right? So the umbrella is Matthew's Marner, Nylander. And if you just pass the puck from the top of the circle, like side of the umbrella to Marner or Nylander, whoever,

and just take it a one-timer or a wrist from up there, I don't think those are sort of high percentage chances. Those are not really going to work with the regularity that I think they would want or that you would want. Oh, so that's probably not it. I still think what has gone down the most of them is their ability to access the slots. So pucks into the slot, passes into the slot,

skating it into the slot. And why that is, that's a little bit more nuanced, but I think that's that's got to be the focus That's sort of like how do we get pucks and bodies into that area and work as a five-man unit altogether that that is sort Of what their focus is right now But even looking at it and as a quasi air quote professional analyst if there was no sort of really air quote professional analyst, there was no sort of really obvious, oh this is what they have to do differently because they're just sort of fractionally off almost across the board relative to last year. Mike, what I found was their attempts are way down from last year. So I would ask you

like if you were Mark Savard, would you split up the personnel? Like, do you like the five forward thing? Do you think it's like actually viable? Not long term. So again, I looked at the five forward thing and one of the real concerns as of late is, well, they're not good defensively. The expected goals against O's favorite term with Morgan Rielly and four forwards

is almost the exact same as five forwards. So the argument that it's not good defensively, I don't buy that. Now you could say, would it be better to serve with a different mix of forwards out there? We can have that conversation, but the idea that it's a defensive decision to make them more reliable, I don't buy that. The numbers sort of don't back that up. Um, so I, I, I don't know, I, I, I don't think you have to go away from it.

I think some of it might be Austin Matthews and his health. Like he's not as dynamic. He doesn't shoot it as hard. He hasn't shoot it as accurately and they're not miles away. They're 20, what are they right now? Joe was 20.3% or something on the year. And you know, you'd love for them to get to about 25. So they're not that, that far off.

They're four or five goals, which by quite frankly, if you look at the goals that Austin Matthews was scoring just on similar caliber plays, he was just doing it last year because I think he could shoot the puck a little better last year than this year. So that's also part of the conversation in my mind. Um, so, yeah, maybe shot attempts, but I don't want empty calorie shots if I'm Mark Chavard or mark savar or the least for the players well i want quality shots not just shooting mentality sure

but make sure that their quality not just go for quantity with mike johnson leaf stars tonight uh... dallas is that a real issue scoring goals this year yet there are a lot of games recently i believe the game down in dallas was three one least i want to say that a few weeks ago as a great call ten goaltending performance. Was it Stowell or is that name? I think Wall played really well. Yeah, Autinger and Wall. Are you anticipating the same style tonight? You think 2-1 game, 3-2 game tonight? Yeah, probably. I mean, Wall's numbers, coming off three or more days rest he's like Ken and oh with like a 940 this year so really really really good. Autinger also very good. The underlying

numbers for Dallas are really strong they're certainly missing Tyler Sagan they're missing Mason Marchman they both haven't played in a while Tyler though for a long time so some of their depth is not going is not available Wyatt Johnson and Jason Robertson probably they're two best players right? Those are two best forwards and they both got off the slow starts. I think the prospect of trying to make the four nations was hanging over their head and they got off to sort of a pressure-filled slow start. They're playing better as of late but yeah I mean Douse checks hard, underlying numbers really good, goaltending really good, defensive numbers really good. With

Toronto having a break and not loving how they played last game, I'm expecting three, two empty net or four, two, like, yeah, that kind of game, um, should be really tight. Johnny, when do you figure out like wall played in Carolina and then didn't play on Saturday night at home, which I found kind of weird, like he's a young guy. When are you really gonna find out if one of these guys can play for two months straight, which is a playoff run?

When they try to do it all in two months, like I don't think we'll know. So it's a wait and see approach. I think so, I mean, and I think Stolars is sort of creeping back on the ice now, although he probably won't be back till maybe after the four nations thing, but they'll share time down the stretch. And I think, you know, whether it's the stat I just gave about three plus days rest or

the fact that neither one of them played a whole bunch in a year, I don't think they're going to push it to find out. Can we ride wall down the stretch? Can we ride solar down the stretch? I think they'll just share and maybe whoever's playing better sort of gets the starts of the playoffs until he doesn't play better than the other guy. It would not surprise me at all, especially if the Leafs make win one round or more that both goalies play in the playoffs, which sometimes that can be dicey, but I don't think we're

going to find out. I don't think they will push either guy if they're both healthy to play more than 55% of the game I just think it'll be mostly just an even split the rest of the year. Do you think you can actually do the one like the Boston thing where Wayman starts all mark starts because I'm just looking looking back at the schedule from last year it's like every other day April 20 April 22 April 24 like if Wall is your guy like he's playing every other game or you're just going to rotate. But we've never actually seen that work that

I can think of. No, now because it hasn't worked doesn't mean it can't work, right? Just, you know, this like it's the goalie don't do it because they don't have, they have one really good goalie and they don't have a second one that they even want to bother with. There hasn't been many situations other than Boston who tried it and it didn't really work for them the way that they anticipated. So it's not ideal because I think sort of everyone likes the continuity and the normalcy of that guy's our guy and he goes every night no matter what. But I think in this situation when they both play relatively the same and the numbers

are the same, I think this might be a year where the Leafs will try to do something that maybe hasn't been done very many times and and sort of utilize both goalies regularly not not like when Gruber started and then Braden Hoppe took over like like just sort of every now and then the other guy will play over the course of sort of regular playoff series Yeah, I know I know I that's exactly The the purist the historian the hockey dude in us like oh, I mean You know I love when Kujo was in that cuz I got him care about anybody else like he was gonna play no matter How bad or good he was it did not matter we knew who just going in there and he's got it

He always does it was never like oh, well, well maybe you know he'll see it in there for like anybody else is if there is a comfort there and that's also a comfort from familiarity which you know if the Bruins had gone to won the cup doing it three years ago we probably wouldn't have this conversation but they did it so we have to yeah and I anticipate we likely will for the rest of the year. Wall versus Ottinger stars least tonight on TSN4. Have a good call, Johnny. We'll do it later in the week.

All right, fellas, have a good night. Mike Johnson joining us here in the Maple Toyota Hotline. Count on Maple Toyota for the right winter tire package for your Toyota. Trade in your old tires, buy a new set, and get $40 back. Visit mapletoyota.com.