I believe the Rangers, Leafs and Canes have the best records in the second half.
- Zezel
It's probably about the same time, but you had previously posted that the Leafs were 18-7-1 since Rielly stood up for the pride of the team. It doesn't matter if it was an over the top reaction or whether the goal deserved that type of retaliation - what does matter is that in team sports you can find moments that the players galvanize over - and I think Rielly did that for this team.
Since the incident, the top-8 teams in the league:
NYR: 19-5-1
Car: 19-6-2
Nas: 18-6-2
Tor: 18-7-1
Dal: 17-6-3
Col: 16-7-2
Edm: 17-7-4
TBL: 15-7-2
The Leafs, at the time of the hit, were 26-16-8 - or .600 hockey. Since the hit on Greig they've been at .712. Their powerplay was clicking at 26.6% and the PK was below average at 78.2%. Since the hit on Greig the powerplay has actually decreased significantly to 20% and the penalty kill has gotten worse - 76.4%.
But since the incident, the Leafs are #1 in league scoring (3.96) and are 12th in Goals Against (2.85). This is an improvement from #5 (3.44) and #22 (3.22), respectively.
So what's changed? It's clearly come at 5v5 play. Digging into it . . .
Hits/60 sure has. Here are the changes in hits/60 by Leaf players since the Grieg incident, the number in brackets shows what it was:
Ryan Reaves: 7.76 (17.96)
Noah Gregor: 6.72 (11.14)
Mark Giordano: 5.69 (3.67)
Simon Benoit: 4.75 (10.75)
John Tavares: 4.6 (4.48)
Calle Jarnkrok: 4.34 (3.51)
Jake McCabe: 4.23 (6.7)
Conor Timmins: 3.88 (4.42)
Matthew Knies: 3.02 (7.65)
Morgan Rielly: 2.65 (2.52)
Pontus Holmberg: 2.34 (3.25)
Tyler Bertuzzi: 2.02 (4.12)
Timothy Liljegren: 1.97 (3.66)
Bobby McMann: 1.91 (9.73)
Auston Matthews: 1.8 (3.21)
David Kampf: 1.54 (4.49)
Nicholas Robertson: 0.94 (2.9)
Mitchell Marner: 0.71 (2.45)
TJ Brodie: 0.04 (1.47)
William Nylander: -0.28 (1.31)
Max Domi: -0.8 (3.25)
New guys who weren't here at the time:
Ilya Lyubushkin: 13.12
Connor Dewar: 9.7
Joel Edmundson: 5.31
In fact the other noticeable thing is that the team has been more willing to take hits as well. The only player on the team who has taken fewer hits (-0.31 variation) since that incident is Auston Matthews.
As a team most of their overall individual play has remained consistent, but overall has been better:
Individual expected goals/60: 0.07
Individual Scoring Chances/60: 0.28
Individual HD Chances/60: 0.29
Rush Attempts/60: -0.1
Rebounds Created/60: 0.2
Giveaways/60: 0.43
Takeaways/60: 0.13
Hits/60: 3.67
Hits Taken/60: 3.51
Shots Blocked/60: 0.4
They may be rushing the puck a little less, but you can see the incremental improvements above, but there's a very significant commitment being made to the physical side of the game - hitting more and taking more hits.
Is there a shift happening that will pay dividends? We'll see, but this is a surprisingly good thing to see from a team that most don't expect it from.
