This season has been absolutely miserable for the Calgary Flames, but if you asked me to list a positive on the year? Tyler Toffoli.
Up until this season, Toffoli’s previous career year came with the Los Angeles Kings in the 2015–16 season. That year, he scored 31 goals and 27 assists for a total of 58 points through 82 games.
Newsflash: he is on pace to set a new and swiftly surpass his previous career high.
Toffoli’s season with the Flames
Toffoli leads the Flames in goals and in points with 26 goals and 54 points through 64 games played on the year thus far. This is paced to amount to a 69-point, 33-goal pace. 20 of his points have come on the power play and he’s averaged a rate of 3.1 shots per game, with 199 total shots registered.
Toffoli has also laid out 55 hits and has accumulated a plus-10 rating on the year up to this point.
Lastly, out of his total 28 assists, 15 of them are primary.
Toffoli’s offensive impact
Using visualizations from HockeyViz.com, there’s evidence to suggest that offensively, Tyler Toffoli has been a force.
Further, at 5v5, he’s shooting at a respectable 10.1% on the season.
One of Calgary’s best goal scorers
At all situations, Toffoli is currently riding a shooting percentage rate of 13.1%, just over his career average of 11.2% and has notched all of this while averaging a TOI/GP of only 16:32 this season.
In taking a look at Toffoli’s isolated impact in the month of February alone, he’s racked up seven goals, four assists, 41 shots and four power play points within the 11 games played. His start to March was slower being held pointless for the first two games, but he notched a critical game-winning goal in the final seconds of the Flames’ latest game versus the Dallas Stars—his third game-winner of the season and first since October 22 against the Carolina Hurricanes.
In MoneyPuck.com‘s xGoals v Goals model through 60 games played at strictly even-strength per 60 minutes, Toffoli is far and away the Flames’ best pure sniper. The analytics and face value numbers do nothing but back this up.
Toffoli’s rocking a goals above expected rate of 3.8 and an expected goals per 60 minutes of 1.28.
Toffoli’s defensive impacts
Turning back to HockeyViz, Toffoli’s on-ice defence at 5v5 is quite good. Opposing shooters rarely make their way to the high-danger areas when Toffoli is on the ice.
However, the defensive impact is also a testament to Sutter’s structure as a whole. Toffoli has a 5v5 on-ice goal differential of 15 (46 goals for, 31 goals against), and an all-situations differential of 36 (82 goals for, 46 goals against).
Toffoli is the Flames’ MVP of 2022–23
All in all, it is undoubtedly fair to state that he has been the Flames’ MVP this calendar season. If it wasn’t for the goalposts, his totals would definitely be a lot higher. A projected 69-point year off a previous career high of 58 points through 82 games? Not too shabby.
Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire
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