SIMMONS: Why the Maple Leafs are in trouble if Chris Tanev is out for long
Steve Simmons says that if Toronto defenceman Chris Tanev misses an extended period of time, it's a problem Leafs may not be able to solve.
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Chris Tanev isn’t easily explained.
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SIMMONS: Why the Maple Leafs are in trouble if Chris Tanev is out for long Back to video
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He has dragged his body around from place to place for 17 years in the National Hockey League, 884 games in all, and in all that time he has received exactly one vote for the Norris Trophy.
He finished 15th in voting in 2022 for best defenceman, with 194 fewer votes than the winner, Cale Makar.
In his biggest season as an almost-Norris candidate, he scored a career-high of six goals and 28 points and, as he always does, he made his team, the Calgary Flames, better. And, unless you’re Connor McDavid or Nikita Kucherov or Nathan MacKinnon, there is no hockey award in hockey for making teams better.
There is only appreciation.
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Tanev came to the Maple Leafs two years ago and unofficially became the club’s most valuable player. There is no award given for that. He played alongside the rather ordinary Jake McCabe and the Leafs had their first shutdown defence pairing in years.
They finished first in the Atlantic Division. They had never done that before. The previous time they finished first was a quarter-century earlier, when the division had another name.
Tanev and McCabe — defence pairings are rarely made up of equals — just clicked and the Leafs were a goalie injury and a team meltdown away from knocking off the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers in the second round of the playoffs.
It is no coincidence that the Leafs collapsed to embarrassing lows last season when they lost Tanev to injury after 11 games.
Why is Chris Tanev so valuable to the Leafs?
His value doesn’t come from the scoresheet. His absence was the beginning of a season full of problems and before summer came, the coach was gone, the general manager was gone and half the front office was gone.
But what’s impossible to completely explain in all this — analytically or otherwise — is how this rather slow-skating, tooth-missing, not necessarily puck-moving, fearless, puck-blocking, sound-minded, huge-hearted defenceman can have this much impact on the teams he has been with for the past several seasons.
Now the Leafs have a problem they may not be able to solve. They don’t have Tanev because he’s injured again. They don’t have his 20 minutes or more each game night that equates to on-ice safety for the coaching staff. They don’t have to think about who is on the ice, who is playing in the defensive zone. who is killing penalties. They don’t have to strategize.
It’s easy: You have 20 minutes or more of Tanev — and that’s every coach in hockey would welcome — one third of the game he doesn’t have to think about.
Tanev did not play Tuesday night in Salt Lake City. The Maple Leafs gave up five goals and lost.
What the club hasn’t officially declared is what Tanev’s injury happens to be this time and how long he’ll be out of the lineup.
He’s now on the injury list. That means it’s something semi-serious, but they haven’t said if it’s a month or two months or however long he’ll be missing.
And the loss to the Mammoth, as well as they played at times — this Leafs team is showing an early-season spirit and energy we haven’t seen in years — came because their defence had no answer for Utah’s speed and, when it did, goaltender Anthony Stolarz didn’t stop the puck.
You give up five goals and you’re going to lose virtually every game you play.
How much better are the Leafs with Tanev?
During his 11 games last season. The Leafs played at a 104-point pace. In the other 71 games, they played at a 74-point pace.
In Tanev’s first season in Toronto, the Leafs played at a 110-point pace when he was in the lineup, an 82-pace when he was on the sidelines.
The year before in Dallas, the very strong Stars played at a 135-point pace once they acquired Tanev from Calgary. They were beating the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup playoffs when Tanev got hurt. After he went down — he continued to play while injured — the Stars didn’t win another game.
That is no accident. That is what happens with Tanev, be it in Toronto, in Dallas or in Calgary.
You don’t judge him the way you judge William Nylander or Auston Matthews. Those players are the show. They get the numbers. They’re easy to equate most nights strictly by looking at the scoresheet.
Tanev is the Maple Leafs secretary of defence on a team that isn’t particularly well-equipped at that position. They were thin to begin the season with Tanev in the lineup, originally playing beside McCabe.
But the rest of the defence, including McCabe, is rather ordinary.
Morgan Rielly is now a bigger name than he is a performer. Troy Stetcher is a waiver-wire pickup and there’s a reason for that. Oliver Ekman-Larsson was a fifth or sixth defenceman on the Stanley Cup-winning team in Florida. The big-shooting free agent Darren Raddysh isn’t shooting enough and is still trying to find his place on the Toronto defence. And now they’re playing the PTO signing Nick Blankenburg on the backline.
The Leafs are a team divided on paper and on the ice. It’s so apparent when you watch them.
They have unique excellence up front, starting with Matthews, Nylander, Kirill Marchenko and the rookie Gavin McKenna, with youngster Easton Cowan and the father of four, John Tavares, along with the unicorn Jack Roslovic.
That’s seven scoring threats from one lineup. Most NHL teams have three or four. The Leafs have all this offence and, gulp, that defence.
With their only truly safe defenceman out for however long.
And they need to deal for a defenceman or two, but what do they have to trade that anybody would want? Cowan? And why would you deal him a young player of that calibre?
The Tanev injury may be key, again, to the Leafs’ success this season. How long with he be out? How many games will he miss? They are 0-1 without him. This is just the beginning of the in-season concern.
Steve Simmons is Canada’s longest serving sports columnist
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