Toronto Maple Leafs: Back in Action (With No Auston Matthews)
The Toronto Maple Leafs are back in action tonight.
Tonight, seven PM, after a very boring four day lull in the action, the Toronto Maple Leafs will host the New Jersey Devils. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be without Auston Matthews.
Babcock confirms Matthews won't play tonight
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) November 16, 2017
Auston Matthews has missed the Leafs last three games. He is also one of the leading candidates for the Hart Trophy at the quarter-mark of the season, so it’s obviously been a huge blow to the Leafs. Dressing a terrible group of centres in his absence, the Leafs have not looked like a very good team with him out of the lineup.
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Even though they’ve won all three games, they’ve been fairly lucky to have done so.
A Bad Run
Prior to the Toronto Maple Leafs recent four game winning streak, they lost five of six. Given that they were lucky to win any of the four games on their winning streak, that’s ten games where they’ve been pretty awful. For this time, they’ve had one of the league’s lowest possession ratings and only a previously slumping goaltending duo has allowed them to avoid a season-ruining run of losing nine of ten.
That’s hockey though. No need to be melodramatic. The Leafs – and all other teams – will continue to confound as long as we’re willing to over analyze ever little detail. In a hockey season, other than a couple of really bad teams, the razor thing edge between being fourth or twelfth in the conference can be one really unlucky set of ten games or so. The Leafs were lucky enough to pick up eight points when they could easily have gotten two or four or even zero. This bodes extremely well for them – and it’s not like they played terribly, the goalie is, afterall, a part of the team.
One day soon this team is going to be preposterously good. When Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner all happen to be going at once, it’s going to be something to behold.
As much as it seems like we might over-complain about 4th line players and 5th defensemen, that is just the nerds being thorough. In any way you want to look at it, the Leafs are a powerhouse in the making and miles ahead of where anyone thought they could be at this point.
Whether or not Matthews plays tonight, I think the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to play much better than they did against Boston.