The Toronto Maple Leafs have been scheduled to play the Boston Bruins in the opening round of the Playoffs since about October.
OK, I’m exaggerating a bit, but not by much. The Toronto Maple Leafs have been so far ahead of any other Atlantic Competition, while being far enough behind the second place Bruins (and the Bruins with, it seemed, always about 10 games in hand) who, in turn, were so far behind Tampa that everything seemed preordained back at Christmas.
Basically Tampa would win the Eastern Conference and play whoever was eighth place while Toronto and Boston would slug it out in a first round that was fair to neither team.
This situation, however, ignored the fact that Tampa’s early season record was fueled by a mad PDO bender. PDO is the combined total of a team’s shooting percentage and save percentage. The theory is that those two numbers will, over the long term, always come back to 100. Therefore, anyone above 100 is getting lucky and anyone below 100 is getting unlucky.
It’s not a perfect science, but it is a great indicator. The Bolts and Leafs were winning games with stellar goaltending and scoring on a (perhaps) unsustainably low number of shots. The Bruins were not, indicating that, maybe, they were the better team.
Present Day
The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning remain the two highest PDO teams in the NHL. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that both teams are more reliant than they should be on getting Vezina-level goaltending to win games.
The Bruins, by no means luck free (the Penguins are 29th and that should terrify people) are ranked 11th, which puts them middle of the pack and significantly lower than both Tampa and Toronto on the PDO charts.
The Bruins are now in first place, however.
And they’ve done it with a game in hand over Tampa and a much, much lower PDO.
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This doesn’t mean, necessarily that the Bruins are FOR SURE a better team than Tampa or Toronto (who played 25% of their games so far without Auston Matthews, their best player), but it does strongly suggest it.
Good News
This is good news for the Leafs, no matter how you look at it. A date with Tampa is far preferable than one with Boston.
Boston has allowed almost 300 less shots than Tampa this year. They play way, way, way better defense. They are a significantly better possession team. In fact, Boston is the best possession team in the NHL that is going to make the Playoffs. (If Carolina didn’t have bad luck, they’d have no luck at all).
You do not want to play the best possession team in the NHL in the first round. Or ever, if you can help it.
Tampa’s team defense can be exposed, they can be out-possessed, they can be pushed around in a way that Boston can’t. They might have a flashier team, but they are easier to play, take more risks and lack the shut-down game of the Bruins.
Next: Mitch Marner Is On Fire + 3 x 30 Goals Scorers
The Leafs drawing Tampa and not Boston in the first round is the best thing that can happen to them.
stats from naturalstattrick.com