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Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins battles against Nazem Kadri of the Toronto Maple Leafs during an NHL game at the Air Canada Centre on October 25, 2014.Claus Andersen/Getty Images

It's a number that hockey fans – old, new, whatever – are intimately familiar with, a go-to when they want a quick gauge of how a player is contributing to his team.

Goals plus assists equals points, and at a basic level, points win hockey games.

But it's a number that can lie, too, especially early in the year. And the Toronto Maple Leafs are an instructive example, nine games in, of the stories they tell.

The team's leading scorers, Phil Kessel and Tyler Bozak, have 10 points each, putting them on pace for career years.

Way down the list, meanwhile, are Joffrey Lupul (three points) and Nazem Kadri (two), second liners who typically hit the scoresheet a whole lot more.

Far from raising a red flag, however, the Leafs are more concerned about almost everyone but Lupul and Kadri.

The reason is pretty simple.

"They're all over the puck," assistant coach Peter Horachek said.

On a team that is desperate to become better at controlling play and having possession of the puck, Kadri and Lupul lead the way. Their Corsi, which is a measurement of how often a player or team is in the offensive zone, are first and second on the team, with Kadri at 58 per cent and Lupul at 56.6 per cent.

The difference between when they are on the ice and when they're not is so pronounced that Toronto's possession falls to 44 per cent when they're on the bench.

Last season, the Leafs had a league-worst 42.8-per-cent Corsi and crumbled late in the year, one key factor that led president Brendan Shanahan to hire a 28-year-old analytics wiz, Kyle Dubas, as his assistant GM.

Corsi is a controversial subject. While it gained many backers during what TSN's Bob McKenzie dubbed the summer of analytics, other fans, media members and NHL staffers continue to find it odd that possession is sometimes prized over points.

Why it is comes down to the role of luck in sport, something which is itself controversial. Whether shots become goals is dependent on so many factors that goal and point generation can be notoriously streaky for particular players, lines and even teams, and it's those streaks that Corsi attempts to account for.

Take the numbers out of the equation, however, and players and their coaches agree with the general concept. If you're getting scoring chances, again and again, and you have the puck more than your opponent, at some point, you will start to score.

It hasn't happened yet, but that's exactly what the Leafs are banking on with Kadri and Lupul.

"I've had probably more posts already this season than I had all last year," Lupul said, "so it's bound to turn at some point."

"As long as we're getting our chances, sooner or later we're going to have some puck luck," Kadri added.

For the inquisitive, here is some of the math on how snake bitten the Leafs second line has been.

Kadri has been on the ice for 69 shots for and 57 against at even strength, making him one of only five forwards on the team with a positive ratio in that regard. The Leafs have scored only three times on those 69 shots, however, for a 4.35 shooting percentage that is way below Kadri's career average (9.70).

But that's not really on him. Kadri has scored two of those goals and taken 13 of those shots, meaning that the defencemen and wingers he has been on the ice with have converted on only 1.8 per cent of their opportunities.

That's led to Kadri having the 15th lowest PDO among forwards leaguewide, meaning essentially he has been one of the unluckiest players in the league.

All these numbers are ridiculously low and unsustainable over a larger set of games.

The funny thing about Kadri being in this position and taking heat early in the year is that two seasons ago, exactly the opposite happened. In the lockout-shortened year, he led the league in both on-ice shooting percentage and PDO, had 39 points in his first 36 games and was hailed as the league's next breakout star.

What had actually happened was he got every bounce possible: Everything went in.

The next season, his production normalized (50 points in 78 games last year) and he drew criticism despite finishing tied for 80th in league scoring while playing on a second line.

Now, his "puck luck" has dried up entirely.

"I really can't remember anything like this happening," he said.

Rather than punish Kadri and Lupul, the Leafs have seen the data and rewarded them. Kessel was put on their line for Tuesday's 4-0 win over the Buffalo Sabres, and he's expected to stay there for Friday's game in Columbus.

Toronto wants to keep driving its possession numbers up, and if they can do so with the team's top scorer beside them, even better.

"I don't know. Whatever. We won," Lupul said of his personal drought. "It's not a big deal. I mean hopefully just keep sticking with it, keep getting opportunities and eventually they'll go in."

"They're going to start going in for them," Horachek agreed. "So we're not worrying about that."

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