NHL News

Maple Leafs’ Forwards Ranked for 2022 Postseason Play 

Colin Blackwell Toronto Maple Leafs

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. 

Colin Blackwell, Toronto Maple Leafs (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)

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

Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Hockey Writers…