Jay McClement helping the Leafs PK

He wasn't a big name free agent pick up, but Jay McClement will go down as one of the best moves Brian Burke made as GM.

McClement agreed to a 2-year, $3M deal with the Leafs this off season and his effort to solidify the club's 3rd and/or 4th line has been huge.

But McClement's biggest strength has been on the penalty kill, a unit that under Ron Wilson was among the NHL's worse.

But this season thanks in part to better goaltending and largely to McClement has suddenly become one of the league's best.

The Toronto penalty kill was perfect in all five chances on Saturday evening in New Jersey– allowing exactly one shot against. They killed off a 64 second 5-3 disadvantage, without allowing a shot. The Leafs penalty kill is now at 86.7 percent for the season (4th in the NHL) and 92 percent over the past 27 games (killing 81 of 88 opportunities over that stretch.)

McClement deserves a lot of credit for that as a guy who takes key faceoffs and against the Devils was on the ice 4:19 while his team was shorthanded.

“When we started it was a little rough just because none of us had played together,” McClement said. “That's probably the biggest part is everyone knowing what the other guy's going to do in reads and obviously our goaltending (Reimer) again tonight, made some huge saves.”

Last year in Colorado, McClement averaged the 3rd most short-handed ice-time in the NHL and won more than 50% of his face-offs. This year he leads the Maple Leafs in shorthanded ice-time per game (3:32).

He does what the coaches call the "little things" which turn out to be huge for a team that last year was 29th in penalty killing.

"I've done it a lot over my career so experience and learning the hard way," McClement said earlier this year. "Getting beat different ways, all kinds of different ways making mistakes; trying to learn from those. I've definitely done that over my career."

"The skill that he has is he outworks people," Carlyle said a few weeks ago. "People always talk about skill and it is a skill to be able to go out and show that dogged work ethic that he demonstrates day in, day out. That's what really separates him in a lot of situations."

McClement knows plenty of tricks to the trade. For example, “not always extending your stick the entire way, having a little bit more to give you so you can bait them a little bit and then he tries to pass it maybe slide it out a little the last couple of inches and try to get a piece of it.”

That knowledge and work ethic have been huge for the Maple Leafs. Remember the last six seasons, Toronto’s PK has not finished better than 27^th.

It's why the Leafs penalty kill is among the NHL's best and why Toronto looks to be on its way to making the playoffs for the first time since 2004.