Maple Leafs NHL EDGE Stats: The 97-to-34 Number Behind Raddysh

Maple Leafs NHL EDGE stats show exactly what Toronto was missing

The most useful thing in the Maple Leafs NHL EDGE stats for 2026-27 is a comparison of two numbers. Darren Raddysh, by himself, recorded 97 shot attempts of 90 mph or faster last season — the most in the NHL, and nearly double the 51 posted by Evan Bouchard in second place. The entire Toronto Maple Leafs roster, combined, recorded 34.

Ninety-seven versus 34. One player against a whole team. That single comparison explains John Chayka's June 19 sign-and-trade with Tampa Bay better than any amount of contract analysis, and it is the clearest evidence yet that Toronto's summer was built around measurable, specific gaps rather than vibes.

What NHL EDGE actually tracks

EDGE is the league's puck and player tracking system, and it produces a category of statistic that traditional boxscores never captured: skating speed in miles per hour, distance skated, shot velocity, zone time and location data. It is descriptive rather than predictive — EDGE tells you how hard a player shoots, not whether that translates to goals.

That limitation matters, and we will come back to it. But for identifying a specific missing skill on a roster, it is the best public tool available. And Toronto's 2025-26 EDGE profile identified a very specific hole.

The Raddysh numbers, in full

Raddysh's 2025-26 EDGE profile is genuinely unusual for a defenceman. Beyond the league-leading 97 attempts at 90-plus mph, he recorded the second-hardest shot that resulted in a goal all season at 100.13 mph, and he led the NHL with four goals scored on shots of 95 mph or faster.

Pair that with the tracking-independent number we wrote about earlier this month — 115 slap shots, the most by any NHL defenceman since Brent Burns hit the same figure in 2018-19 — and a coherent picture emerges. Raddysh is not a puck-mover who occasionally shoots. He is a shooter who plays defence, and he treats the top of the power-play umbrella as a shooting position.

Toronto's power play has not had that in years. It has had distributors, seam passers and quarterbacks. What it lacked was a right-shot defenceman whose presence at the point forces a penalty kill to respect a one-timer, which in turn opens the seams for everyone else. That is the actual mechanism — the goals Raddysh scores matter less than the coverage he distorts.

Why 100 mph changes a penalty kill's geometry

A 100 mph shot from the blue line reaches the net in roughly a quarter of a second. A penalty killer who does not close on the point cannot recover; one who does close leaves a passing lane. That is a genuine dilemma, and creating dilemmas is the whole job of a power play. Toronto spent two seasons running units where the penalty kill could safely ignore the point.

Jack Roslovic and the speed-burst bet

The other EDGE addition is less dramatic and possibly more important to the five-on-five game. Jack Roslovic, signed to a two-year deal, recorded 186 speed bursts of 20-plus mph last season, which put him in the 93rd percentile among forwards.

That number is the argument for putting him on a line with Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies. Matthews has never been a burner; Knies is a power forward who wins pucks. Neither is the player who beats a defenceman wide to create entry speed. Roslovic, on the tracking data, is. He also played with Matthews at the U.S. National Team Development Program, which is a nice story but not an analytical argument.

The caution here is that speed bursts measure how often a player skates fast, not what he does at that speed. Roslovic has bounced through Winnipeg, Columbus, the Rangers, Carolina and Edmonton in recent seasons, which is not the résumé of a player teams are confident about. We called him the riskiest bet of Toronto's summer for that reason, and the EDGE profile does not change it.

Knies, Nylander and the rest of the tracked profile

Knies grades well in 20-plus mph bursts, which fits the eye test of a 6-foot-3 winger who arrives at pucks faster than his frame suggests. He is coming off 23 goals and a career-high 43 assists for 66 points in 79 games, in year one of a six-year contract at a $7.75 million cap hit that runs through 2030-31 — still the best long-term value on the roster.

William Nylander's shot metrics grade out strongly as well, which will surprise nobody who has watched him score 30-plus goals in five consecutive seasons. He led Toronto with 79 points and 22 power-play points in 65 games last year.

On the other side of the ledger, Sergei Bobrovsky's EDGE goaltending profile arrives with obvious caveats attached. He posted a .877 save percentage and a 3.07 goals-against average in his final Florida season, career worsts, and he will be the oldest goaltender in the NHL this season at 37 after Jonathan Quick's retirement. Tracking data cannot tell you whether a goalie's decline is real or a function of the team in front of him. That is the question Toronto's three-year, $21 million commitment is betting on.

The addition that tracking data cannot measure

Worth flagging alongside the velocity numbers: the summer's other blue-line addition was acquired for a skill EDGE does not capture at all. Emil Andrae came from Philadelphia in Chayka's first trade as general manager — the five-piece deal that sent Joseph Woll and Simon Benoit to the Flyers for Andrae, goaltender Samuel Ersson and a 2026 third-round pick.

Chayka's stated reasoning was specific. "He's a smart, competitive player who helps us break the puck out more efficiently," the general manager said of Andrae, adding that he is "a good puck mover who can also join the rush and help support offence as well." Andrae produced 13 points in 61 games with the Flyers, which is not a number that impresses anyone in isolation.

That is the point. Toronto struggled to exit its own zone cleanly last season, and clean exits are almost entirely invisible in public tracking data. There is no EDGE statistic for a first pass that beats a forecheck. The Raddysh acquisition can be justified with a number; the Andrae acquisition has to be justified with an argument, and Chayka made one.

Both moves point the same direction. This is a front office that decided Toronto's blue line was not bad so much as it was miscast — too many defenders who defended well and did nothing else. Whether the correction went too far in the other direction is the season's open question.

What EDGE cannot tell you

Here is the honest limit. Toronto allowed 299 goals last season. Not one of those goals was caused by a lack of shot velocity from the blue line. The Leafs' problem was structural — defensive-zone coverage, breakouts, and a goaltending situation that never stabilised. EDGE data does not measure any of that.

Raddysh, in particular, arrives with a defensive reputation that the tracking data does not address. An eight-year term on a defenceman whose value is concentrated in one elite skill is a real risk, and the sign-and-trade structure means Toronto is committed well past the current core's window.

The correct reading is narrow: Chayka identified a specific measurable deficiency and bought the best available fix for it. That is good process. Whether it produces 10 more wins depends on things EDGE does not track.

What's next

The first real evidence arrives in preseason, starting Sept. 19 against Montreal, when Jim Hiller shows his power-play alignment for the first time. Watch where Raddysh lines up — if he is on the top unit at the right point with Nylander in the left circle, the design is exactly what the EDGE numbers suggest it should be.

Watch Roslovic's line assignment too. If he opens camp with Matthews and Knies, Toronto is betting on the tracking data over the résumé. That is a defensible bet, and it is the kind of decision that will define whether Chayka's first summer worked. Check the roster page for the current group and contracts for what each of these bets costs.