The Toffoli–Misa–Graf Line: Sixty-Seven Minutes, Sixty Percent, Zero Goals Against

The thesis

The Toffoli–Misa–Graf line played 67 minutes of five-on-five hockey across nine games in 2025-26. In those 67 minutes, the line generated 3.62 expected goals against 2.41 expected goals allowed, scored 2 actual goals, conceded 0, produced 3 high-danger shots against 1, and drew more penalties than they took (MoneyPuck lines.csv, accessed May 13, 2026).

That is a 60.0% expected goals share. On a Sharks team that finished the year at 47% xGF% as a 5v5 group and went minus-41 in goal differential. The line was outscored zero times, drew penalties, kept the high-danger ledger lopsided in its favor, and posted these numbers on a per-minute basis that, if it scaled, would have been a top-twenty Sharks 5v5 line by chance differential.

The proper sample-size honesty: 67 minutes is sixty-seven minutes. The standard error band on a 60% xGF% over that sample stretches from about 48% to 72% with a one-standard-deviation confidence interval. The right read is not "this line was a 60% xGF% line." The right read is "the early evidence puts this combination on the track of a real positive-impact 5v5 line, the only Misa configuration that produced both a positive xG margin AND a clean goal ledger, and the staff should run it back in 2026-27 with a longer runway."

The Toffoli–Misa–Graf line outscored the planning-doc's projected second line. The planning-doc's projected second line was Eklund-Misa-Toffoli, which got 18 games and 103.8 minutes together and posted 47% xGF% with seven goals against in the same minutes Toffoli-Misa-Graf posted zero. The configuration the planning doc has not yet committed to was, on the limited evidence available, the better Misa line.

The receipts (joint TOI, all 5v5)

MoneyPuck's lines.csv, accessed May 13, 2026, season summary for 2025-26 regular season. All numbers are joint-line, not derived per-game averages.

The xGF% of 60.0% is the headline. xGF% is the most predictive single-stat measure of line impact at 5v5. The Sharks as a team posted 47% xGF% during the season. The line outperformed team baseline by thirteen percentage points across its joint minutes. That gap is meaningful even with small-sample noise discounted.

The CF% of 49.0% is the lukewarm part of the underlying portrait. Shot-attempt share was essentially even. The way they reached 60% xGF% was through shot quality rather than shot volume. They generated higher-danger shots from better ice than the opposition got back against them, with a 3:1 high-danger shot ratio. That is the analytical fingerprint of a line that picks its spots well rather than one that grinds opponents into the offensive zone.

The actual goal ledger is 2-0. The expected ledger was 3.62-2.41. The line over-finished its expected output and under-conceded its expected output (let in zero against a 2.41 xGA, which is more good fortune than skill in a 67-minute sample). The on-ice numbers were better than the underlying numbers, but the underlying numbers were already positive. Both reads support the conclusion that the line was a net plus.

The penalty differential of plus-2 is consistent with a line that engages physically, gets to the inside, and forces the defending team into reactive coverage.

How the construction works, player by player

Collin Graf (RW, age 23, 81 GP). Team-leading 0.84 individual expected goals per sixty minutes among Sharks forwards with sustained NHL deployment. On-ice xGF% of 50.0%, tied for the team lead among regular forwards. iG/60 of 0.91. iP/60 of 1.82. 57.4% offensive zone start rate. A shooter profile anchored by quality shots. The Graf piece of the line is the chance-generation anchor. Pucks delivered to him in the offensive zone become high-quality scoring chances at a higher rate than they do for any other Sharks forward with a full season of NHL minutes.

Michael Misa (C, age 19, 45 GP). Rookie center, second overall pick in 2025, on-ice xGF% of 50.0% across his 45-game season, iXG/60 of 0.73 (top-six rate at 5v5), iP/60 of 1.87 (top-six rate on the road), 55.6% offensive zone start rate. The Misa piece of the line is the play-driving center who can read the defense, deliver clean entries, and find the supporting wingers in dangerous ice. The earlier player-review work on Misa concluded that his rookie year underlying numbers were the rookie year of a future top-six center who needed better wingers. Toffoli and Graf, as the line was constructed, were better wingers than what he played with on average across his season.

Tyler Toffoli (LW on this line, RW on most others, age 34, 79 GP). Veteran finisher. 0.65 iXG/60 (below the line's other two contributors). 49% on-ice xGF%. 11.0% sh% (below his career average). The Toffoli piece of the line was always going to be the experienced read, the off-puck spot-finder, and the secondary scoring threat from the half-wall. The 19-goal year is a career-low return that runs through his power-play production rather than through 5v5 dominance, but his 5v5 process numbers on this specific line were better than his 5v5 process numbers on the rest of his deployments.

Why the fit works. The three players cover the three skills a Sharks middle-six line needs to generate offense against modern NHL defenses. Graf attacks the dangerous areas and finishes from quality ice. Misa drives the play and reads the seams in the offensive zone. Toffoli, even at 34 with a flattening underlying profile, can still finish secondary chances from the right ice and can still hold the line in the offensive zone without being a defensive liability. None of the three is a possession monster. What they did at 5v5, when the puck was in the offensive zone, was generate good shots at a higher clip than the league average and protect the back of their own defensive zone better than the per-minute Sharks-team baseline suggests they should have.

How it stacks up against the other Misa lines

Misa centered eight different 5v5 line combinations during his 45-game season. The chart below shows the seven combinations that produced more than 13 minutes of joint TOI, sorted by minutes.

The largest sample (Eklund-Misa-Toffoli, 103.8 minutes across 18 games) is the planning-doc's projected 2L. That sample produced a 47% xGF% and broke even on the actual goal count (7-7). It is the longest Misa line of the year. It is also the line that posted the weakest underlying-numbers result of the four combinations with more than 30 minutes together.

Two of the eight combinations with more than 13 joint minutes produced xGF% above 58. Both of them include Graf. The Toffoli-Misa-Graf line at 60% over 67 minutes. The Graf-Misa-Gaudette line at 59% over 26.8 minutes (3 goals for, 0 against, 1.76 vs 1.22 xG). The other strong results either involve Sherwood (whose individual fit with Misa is excellent but whose individual underlying numbers are less stable across his season than Graf's are) or involve such small samples that the read is more noise than signal.

The pattern that emerges across all the small samples: Misa's 5v5 performance is significantly better when Graf is on the right wing than when he is not. Two of the three Graf-Misa combinations with non-trivial joint TOI posted 59% xGF% or better. The third, the Skinner-Misa-Graf trio over 21 minutes, was the line's worst result of any non-Sherwood configuration, and that one had Jeff Skinner playing a winger role for which his veteran profile no longer fits at 5v5. Skinner's drag on that result is more about Skinner than about Misa or Graf.

The conclusion this evidence supports, with appropriate sample-size humility: Graf is the right-wing pairing for Misa. Eklund, the planning doc's projected left wing for the 2L, may or may not be the right left-wing pairing for the same combination, and the Eklund-Misa-Toffoli result is the one piece of evidence that argues for caution about leaning too hard on the Eklund pairing in particular. The Toffoli-Misa-Graf line lived without Eklund on the left wing. It worked.

What the 2026-27 deployment call looks like

The planning-doc projection in docs/offseason-outline.md has Misa centering Eklund-Misa-Toffoli as the second line. The Eklund slot has a real defensive-zone exit case and a real possession-impact case; Eklund is one of the team's better play-drivers at 5v5 despite his minus-31 season. The Toffoli slot has the experience case and the secondary-scoring case but a flattening 5v5 underlying-numbers profile at 34 years old.

The deployment alternative the evidence supports is to slide Graf onto Misa's right wing for the second line in 2026-27 and let Toffoli either rotate down to the third line, take PP1 duty, or play left wing on a Wennberg-centered third line. The construction would look like:

• 2L: Eklund – Misa – Graf (planning-doc Eklund + the line review's preferred RW slot)
• 3L: Sherwood – Wennberg – Toffoli (or any combination that keeps Toffoli in the 12-14 minute range with PP2 work)

Or, alternatively, the line review under direct examination here:

• 2L: Toffoli – Misa – Graf (the actual configuration the line review studied, with Toffoli at LW)
• 3L: Sherwood – Wennberg – Eklund (giving Eklund a clean checking-line role with possession-driving wingers)

Both configurations leave the Celebrini-Smith pairing on the top line. Both configurations get Graf out of the third-line role the planning doc currently has him in (3L Sherwood-Wennberg-Graf), where his individual underlying numbers say he is too good for the deployment. Both configurations protect Misa from being the strongest player on his own line, which is the developmental risk the planning-doc projection runs by pairing him with a flattening Toffoli and a Eklund coming off a minus-31 season.

The first configuration (Eklund-Misa-Graf) is the cleaner answer for the planning doc's overall lineup math. The second configuration (Toffoli-Misa-Graf) is the configuration the line review directly studied. The point the evidence supports is that Graf belongs on Misa's right wing one way or another. The left-wing slot is the negotiable variable.

What this is not

A line-review piece on a 67-minute, 9-game joint sample should say the things it is not, before it gets quoted back differently.

This is not a claim that the Toffoli-Misa-Graf line is a 60% xGF% line. Sixty-seven minutes is not enough to claim that. The true-talent estimate of the line, blended against league-average priors, sits somewhere in the 52-56% xGF% range, which is still positive but less heroic than the headline.

This is not a claim that Eklund-Misa-Toffoli is a bad line. 47% xGF% across 103.8 minutes is below team baseline for a top-six line, but it is not catastrophic. The point of the comparison is not that one line is good and the other is bad. It is that the limited evidence available favors Toffoli-Misa-Graf over Eklund-Misa-Toffoli at the per-minute level, and the staff should treat that as evidence rather than as noise.

This is not a claim that Toffoli is having a great 5v5 season. He is not. His individual 5v5 numbers are flat across his full body of work. The argument is that Toffoli's 5v5 impact within the specific Misa-Graf context was better than his 5v5 impact in his other deployments, and that the line's chance-quality result was driven by the combination rather than by any one of the three players individually.

This is not a small-sample mirage built on two lucky bounces. The 2-0 actual goal result is partly fortunate. The 3.62-2.41 xG result and the 3-1 high-danger shot result are not. Both underlying-numbers measures came in net-positive over the joint minutes.

Verdict

Run the line back.

Toffoli on the left wing, Misa centering, Graf on the right wing, deployed as the second line behind Celebrini-Smith-X. Give the combination twenty games of clean deployment to start the 2026-27 season. If the xGF% holds anywhere north of 52%, the alternative second-line configurations the planning doc had penciled in get formally retired. If the xGF% slips to 47-50%, the staff has the data to make the call cleanly rather than projecting from a 9-game sample.

The cost of running this line back early is low. Toffoli's 14:58 ATOI from 2025-26 is well within range for a second-line winger in 2026-27. Graf's 16:27 forward TOI fits a second-line right wing role with PP elevation. Misa's 12:49 was rookie-year usage; the bump to 15-17 minutes is the developmental step the planning doc already anticipates.

The 2025-26 evidence on the Toffoli-Misa-Graf line is 67 minutes, 9 games, 60.0% xGF%, 2 goals for, 0 against. Small sample. Real signal. The honest projection is that the line is a 52-56% xGF% line if run consistently, and that this is the best Misa configuration the Sharks have on the roster as currently constructed.

The next twenty games together will tell.

Sources

• MoneyPuck lines.csv, accessed May 13, 2026. All joint-line stats are direct MoneyPuck numbers, not derived per-game averages.
• MoneyPuck skaters.csv, accessed May 11, 2026. Individual 5v5 metrics for each player.
• State files (verified two-source minimum): state/counting_stats.md (NHL.com, Hockey-Reference, CBS Sports, Wikipedia, hockeydb, The Game Haus); docs/offseason-outline.md (Sharks 2026 planning doc, April 19, 2026).
• Existing player reviews: Misa, Graf, Toffoli Brisbee reviews in docs/players/.
• External clippings cross-referenced: Espy / THN player reviews of Graf (May 10) and Toffoli (May 11); McKeen's #3 Sharks system / Top 15 Prospects (April 11).