Is it just me, or is Jake McCabe pretty bad?

[Thornbury]

I figured I should take a better look at his games - not just in realtime while watching, but breaking down video on replays, see if the chances were really his fault or not. Here's my assessment of every strong scoring chance against that happened while McCabe was on the ice, against Chicago (he was on for most of the strong scoring chances against):

1) McCabe bobbles the bouncing puck, doesn't position his body to block it either, allows strong scoring chance, is lucky that Woll bails him out. His high level positioning is good, but the details/hands aren't, in a high danger area like this you want to get your body in the way so it blocks the puck if you miss it with your stick


2) Combination of errors on this one. Bad point pass by Gregor, then a bad decision by Klingberg (should've backed off and allowed the zone exit vs. trying to hold the line flat-footed). I think those 2 are mostly at fault, but also don't love McCabe's transition D, does end up caught in no-man's lang a bit. McCabe "meh" but not terrible, Gregor and Klingberg more at fault, although at least Gregor makes a great backcheck to limit the danger of the scoring chance


3) Similar to the last play - McCabe not terrible, but not great either. Bedard beat Klingberg clean off the rush, McCabe defends sort of OK, but not great - he ends up in no-man's land a bit, not really covering Bedard or effectively taking away the pass to Donato. I think this is mostly on Klingberg, but McCabe is at best average here, more like below average. Would also like to see McCabe stop in front of the net here, vs. skating himself out of the play - he would have been in terrible position if there was a fast rebound chance.


4) Pretty bad here IMO, just too big gaps all over the place, too passive and slow to apply pressure a few plays in a row, ending up in a goal against. Though I will say, Klingberg puts him in tough spots again - puts him in positions where he has to be super on the ball with his gaps and pressure just to do OK, and he isn't. This is an issue I see often with McCabe - he's not often badly out of position, but he is often just a step behind the play, struggling to keep up and not applying meaningful pressure


5) McCabe strongly at fault IMO, Lily is in good position to defend the puck carrier (Athanasiou), and the pass to Johnson is the clear biggest danger. There's a number of Blackhawks sort of on the rush, but only Athanasiou and Johnson have the speed and positioning to be immediately dangerous, if the puck goes to anyone else other Leafs will have time to recover and join the defensive effort. It's clear the right play for McCabe here is to cover Johnson, but instead he doubles Athanasiou, leaving the pass to Johnson wide open. Then he's too slow to recover, goal against. I think this is the only goal against that Lily has been on for this season? Knies also could have been better here, but McCabe is a vet dman, I put more responsibility on him to be the last line of defence vs. a rookie winger.


These chances/goals are certainly not all McCabe's fault, Klingberg especially is putting him in bad positions frequently. This made me revisit my thinking that McCabe is worse than Klingberg defensively - I think Klingberg is worse than McCabe on these plays, he's often the root of the problem while McCabe is more often the secondary issue. Will have to keep looking out for this, it's probably a pattern.

However, McCabe does still look pretty bad on these IMO, especially since he's not an offensive guy like Klingberg, if he contributes anywhere it's defensively. This is maybe a below average McCabe game, but not way below average or anything - IMO he has looked similar throughout the Florida series, and through 3 games so far this year.

Overall, breaking these plays down makes me think we should split up McCabe and Klingberg, maybe McCabe would have more success with Lily, but still not liking McCabe's game. It's not encouraging that Gio/Lily have been rock solid together, but in a very rare time where McCabe was paired with Lily, it was an instant goal against that was primarily McCabe's fault.

To McCabe's credit, he did play much better paired with Lilligren against Florida. Really liked his physicality. And Giordano helped steady Klingberg. Maybe this will work?

 

[TheScandal89]

I actually like Jake McCabe but you have to realize he's also a player with bottom feeder team pedigree who has probably not played in any meaningful moments, so being on a team with expectations could be a new experience with new standards and expectations.

Dumb comment, but expectations with this guy need to be tempered by the fact that he's not Bryan McCabe offensively, and he's not Jake Muzzin in terms of defensive versatility, physical dominance and do it all everything. He's got a nice physical element and bite to his game and we pay him nothing. But hopefully he gets better and more consistent.

Its a dumb comment to say he sucks when he does?

Hey, I hope he turns it around too, he started off great with Liljegren, but ever since he got paired with Brodie he's been terrible. Can't shoot, can't pass, terrible pinches leading to 2 on 1s, etc. The terrible pinches hurt even more when he was hanging Klingberg, who already is not great defensively, out to dry.

We were better off paying those 2 1sts we spent on McCabe and ROR on Chychrun in retrospect. Of course its a after the fact statement.

 

[Obo]

I figured I should take a better look at his games - not just in realtime while watching, but breaking down video on replays, see if the chances were really his fault or not. Here's my assessment of every strong scoring chance against that happened while McCabe was on the ice, against Chicago (he was on for most of the strong scoring chances against):

Excellent post. Evidence and analysis make for a great combo and, while this was just one game, I think I have a better idea of exactly what we have in McCabe. Thanks for taking the time to write that up.

 

[Larcos_Unal]

He's a borderline 2nd pairing dman but it really depends on who he's paired with. Klingberg ain't it.

 

[WTFMAN99]

Even though McCabe is more of a defensive defenceman, he still needs someone that’s pretty strong defensively for when he does boneheaded moves and jumps into the offence aka why pairing him with Klingberg does not work.


Rielly has looked pretty good. I think with Klingberg in the picture for the offensive role it has allowed Rielly to focus on both ends of the ice and taken some pressure off from producing offensively. But like you said it’s shown that we do need that top pairing dman more than ever now.

An elite 2-way guy like a Pietrangelo or something, plays both special teams, 25 minutes a night.

I would do terrible things to get a guy like Heiskanen onto this roster.

 

[ponder]

The conversation with Rielly is always about what he needs in terms of support to activate a higher level of play. I feel like this excludes him from being a true number one by definition, as a number one's role is usually to shelter and elevate whomever is there with him. I look at Giordano, who has Norris level pedigree and there are just flashes of what he used to be able to do to calm the waters, take the extra half beat that I don't think Rielly has.

Rielly is fantastic when he plays with speed and uses his instincts, but I don't like his slow down game. It's like when he slows down his feet to assess he stops seeing the ice as well and tunnel visions into traffic or trouble.

Would be curious to see what he looks like beside/behind a Cale Makar though. That would be an interesting experiment.

He’s not a stud 1D, but I’d consider him easily a top 20 dman in the league, probably top 15. That makes him a 1D in my eyes.

Also, re: partners, he was outstanding with Schenn, and quite good with Brodie, Hainsey and others. He’s mostly not been good with guys who are just way too weak defensively to be on a top pairing, like Barrie, Gards and Zaitsev.