One of the developing storylines for Toronto this postseason has been the goaltending. Not necessarily the play, but rather the health and status of their three netminders. Matt Murray is the third goalie right now, and maybe healthy, while Joseph Woll has been solid since entering for Ilya Samsonov. Speaking of which, the Leafs provided an update on Samsonov yesterday, and it adds the storyline of the Toronto goalies this postseason:

Sheldon Keefe says Ilya Samsonov hasn't skated since sustaining an upper body injury in Game 3

"As of right now, it's Joe Woll and Matt Murray that are available … it will be Joe again [in Game 5] at this point" @TSN_Edge

— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) May 11, 2023

Game 5 is Friday night.

*

Both Alex Pietrangelo and Darnell Nurse received one-game suspensions for their actions on Wednesday night in Edmonton's 4-1 win. I don't really have much to say anymore. After the Eberle/Cogliano incident, I've just given up.

*

It took the first overtime period of the series, but Carolina was victorious by a 3-2 margin thanks to a power-play goal on a Jesper Fast deflection. That pushed them to a 4-1 series victory over New Jersey and a ticket to the Eastern Conference Final for the second time in five seasons.

Fast had points in every game against the Devils, posting three goals and three assists in the five games. He, along with Jordan Martinook, were excellent for much of this series. They need more of that if they want to go even further in the postseason.

Brent Burns and Jaccob Slavin had the other goals while Timo Meier and Dawson Mercer replied for New Jersey. It was two goals in three games for Meier, but even a couple more from him would not have been the difference in this series. Carolina won their other three games by a 14-goal margin in total, so, they needed a lot more from other players, too.

This isn't to degrade the season New Jersey had, either. It was a great year for a team clearly on the upswing. It was the first postseason for Jack Hughes, and it was Jesper Bratt's first real playoff run. There are some contracts to negotiate (or not) but there are also a bevy of high-end prospects on the way, and this team will be in the mix for years to come. More on them in later columns, but it was a very successful season by most measures for the franchise.  

Carolina awaits the winner of Toronto/Florida. Teuvo Teravainen may be ready for Game 1 of the ECF, though we'll await official confirmation. I haven't seen anything about Andrei Svechnikov in a while, but I don't think that's an expectation anyone should have at this point. Either way, this team is showing itself to be truly committed to their game, and it's paying off very well.

*

Dallas has pushed Seattle to the brink of elimination thanks to a 5-2 win on Thursday night. Despite being out-shot 14-5 in the first period, thanks to nice passing plays leading to goals from Wyatt Johnson and Roope Hintz. A pair of second-period Kraken goals, including Jared McCann's first of the postseason, pushed the score close but they could never find an equalizing tally. Seattle goes back to Washington down 3-2 with Game 6 coming Saturday night.

The Dallas top line did a lot of the damage as Hintz finished with two goals (one in the empty net), while Joe Pavelski managed a marker of his own and added an assist. Jason Robertson broke out of his postseason production slump with a trio of assists, also managing a couple shots and a couple hits.

This was the second rough game in a row for the Kartye-Beniers-Eberle line. The team did move McCann back to the top trio at times in the third period, but largely stuck with what they had been using since the McCann injury. If I were a betting man – and I am – I think we see McCann back on the top line for Game 6 with Seattle's back against the wall.

*

The offseason fantasy reviews of each of the non-playoff teams continues. We have covered several of them already with the most recent being the Washington Capitals. This is a chance to give one last bit of shine to the teams we're not talking about when the season ends.

This review will cover the successes and failures, as well as the improvements and declines, made both by players and the team. All of this, of course, is through a fantasy hockey lens.

As usual, the data will be from our Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick, unless otherwise indicated.

Successes

Even in another non-playoff year where Arizona finished just outside the bottom-5 teams, there were a lot of good fantasy seasons.

Clayton Keller demolished previous career marks by scoring 37 goals and 49 assists, managing 20 PPPs (tied a career-high, actually), and posting 223 shots while playing all 82 games. He did set a career-best shooting percentage at 16.6%, but it was also his fourth straight year of increasing shooting percentages. Maybe he's just learning how to score more efficiently at the NHL level as the team improves around him? Regardless, Keller finished the year as a top-50 fantasy player on Yahoo!, greatly out-performing his ADP. Oh, it was also the fifth time in the last six seasons he dressed every single contest. His 15 games missed in 2021-22 remain the only games he's missed since (and including) his rookie season.

Matias Maccelli had a tremendous rookie effort with 11 goals and 49 points in 64 games. He finished the campaign with 19 points in his final 20 games to end up where he did, and that's first among all rookies in points per game. His playmaking was on full display as Corey Sznajder's tracking data has Maccelli with 5.4 scoring chance assists/60 minutes at 5-on-5 this season (his rate of assisting on a teammate's scoring chance). For comparison, Mikko Rantanen was at 5.6, Aleksander Barkov at 5.5, and Leon Draisaitl at 5.3. That is the level of playmaking we're talking about when discussing Maccelli's rookie season (at least at 5-on-5). He needs to round out his game, obviously, but it is an exciting start to his career. Here is what it looks like visually, with the red line representing Maccelli's SC assist rate:

That is high-end playmaking for 99% of the league, let alone for a rookie in Arizona.

To a lesser degree, it was a good fantasy season out of Barrett Hayton (19-24) and Lawson Crouse (24-21) as well. For Crouse, he's maintained his very physical play (375 hits in his last 142 games) but now has back-to-back 20-goal seasons, pacing for 25 goals every 82 games. If he can regularly post 20-20 seasons with 180 hits? That's a fantasy banger star.

Both Jakob Chychrun and Shayne Gostisbehere were solid fantasy options when they were in the lineup, but they're both gone now.

Failures

Relative to expectations, it's hard to say any player really failed here as a fantasy option. Keller was great, as was Schmaltz when healthy, Gostisbehere was pacing for 16 goals, 33 assists, 16 PPPs, and 181 shots before the trade, and Karel Vejmelka was a top-20 fantasy goalie. With Jakob Chychrun injured to start the year, and Lawson Crouse putting up another good banger season, it's hard to say there were any outright fantasy failures here. While fantasy and real life don't always align, perhaps this is a sign of the franchise turning itself around?

The best I can come up with is there's someone out there who was really high on Travis Boyd in the preseason only for Boyd to see per-game declines across the board. Sorry to whomever that person is. It was a tough year for that one fantasy owner.

Improvements

Nick Schmaltz is a player I have been high on for several years, going back to his early Chicago days. Aside from being stuck largely on bad teams for his career, Schmaltz's problem in the fantasy game has been his shot rate: over his first 139 Arizona games, the winger's shot rate at 5-on-5 was around the 15^th percentile of the league, or a mid-tier fourth-line rate. Guys that shot more than Schmaltz on a per-minute basis include Pat Maroon, Josh Archibald, and Kevin Rooney. Not being a dual threat not only hurts his fantasy value, but his real-life value, too.

This past 2022-23 season saw Schmaltz post a career-high in shot attempt rate at 5-on-5 (11.2/60 minutes). That isn't elite or anything, but it was a mid-tier third-line rate, and that's a clear improvement. Another step like that would be a very big deal for Schmaltz's fantasy upside.

For the first time in… many years… the Arizona Coyotes also had a viable second line. With Maccelli and Crouse on the ice together at 5-on-5, the Coyotes carried over 50% of the expected goal share and 52% of the goals (in nearly 600 minutes together). Different iterations were more successful than others when adding guys like Nick Bjugstad (in Edmonton now) or Jack McBain (still in Arizona) but the Coyotes had a second line that was legitimately league average (or better) and as backhanded as that sounds, it's a big deal for a team whose rebuild should take another big step forward in 2023-24. That added scoring depth helped the power play rise, too, on both units.

The last improvement we'll discuss is the defensive one. Even though expected goals went up league-wide at 5-on-5, Arizona's went down as a team from 2.91/60 minutes to 2.88. Not a massive decline, but when the average team is rising and you're falling, that is a big improvement. The emergence of Juuso Välimäki, in real-life impact, was a big reason here. The team defence was still passable after the Trade Deadline, too.

Declines

Even with great seasons from Keller and Schmaltz, and a good second line, and more shots per minute, Arizona's scoring went down at 5-on-5 compared to 2021-22. The big reason for that is just a complete lack of offence from the bottom-6: with Keller/Schmaltz/Crouse/Maccelli off the ice, the team scored 1.35 goals per 60 minutes. For reference, of the 252 forwards in the NHL this season with at least 800 minutes played at 5-on-5, the lowest on-ice team goals-for mark was Zemgus Girgensons (1.43/60 minutes). That is horrific, full stop.

That is really about it. The penalty kill was roughly the same in most respects, the power play was better, the 5-on-5 defence was better, and the 5-on-5 offence was better for all the relevant fantasy options.

Where They Go From Here

The lack of declines from this team, combined with a lot of good seasons, is why I'm very optimistic about Arizona. To start with, their top line of Schmaltz-Hayton-Keller was legitimately excellent. Not Arizona-adjusted excellent, but MoneyPuck had their expected goals at 58.7%, which was nestled between Dallas's top line (59.2%) and Pittsburgh's top line (57.7%). Their actual goal share was 61.5%, equal to Toronto's top line (with Mitch Marner), and in excess of Minnesota's (60%), Buffalo's (56.8%), and Carolina's (55.6%) as well. Add the burgeoning second line, Välimäki's breakout, and Vejmelka's improvement, and the building blocks are here.

It is a matter of when the ownership group wants to treat this as a team that is supposed to start pushing for the playoffs. They were obviously hoping to land the first overall pick in the 2023 Draft, but didn't get the bounces they needed, and are drafting sixth. They should still get a very good player, but it won't super-charge the rebuild like adding Connor Bedard would.  

Without the top pick in the Draft, it's very much an open question what they do here. The team only has $33M committed to the roster in 2023-24, not including their Long-Term Injury Retirement Home And Spa or their prospects. That leaves them with, ostensibly, around $50M in cap space for the offseason to improve the roster. They also have 18 (!) picks in the second or third round of the next three drafts, and that is a lot of draft capital they can part with in a trade.

Of course, having the means to do something and having the will to do something are two different concepts. This franchise has been sewering its NHL roster for several years now and, most of the time, is indistinguishable from a money-laundering enterprise. Arizona doesn't have to cap itself out with a bunch of hefty, long-term contracts, but we just finished a season where Buffalo was considerably under the cap limit, and it probably cost them a playoff spot.  

My guess is we see another offseason from Arizona that we just saw. Act as a third-party trade broker, take on bad contracts, load for the future etc. In other words, more of the same that we've seen for many years now. It is a shame, because this team is starting to get fun to watch, but the roster kneecappings will (likely) continue until morale improves.

Previous Offseason Reviews:

Buffalo

Calgary

Pittsburgh

Nashville

Ottawa

Vancouver

Detroit

St. Louis

Washington