The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a free fall.
Run in the streets, rant at your neighbors, cross all bounds of decency because you don’t like a stranger’s opinion on the internet, and then set all your belongings on fire because the Toronto Maple Leafs are in ninth place overall in the NHL.
It’s basically a full blown disaster.
To recap the week:
Auston Matthews doesn’t play with enough edge. He will never score again.
Jake Gardiner singlehandedly proves the earth is flat by rendering such things as measuring and evidence completely irrelevant.
William Nylander, a premier player just a few months ago, is garbage and should be immediately sent to the Ducks for Nick Ritchie.
The coach is bad, Ron Hainsey is actually good, and I think somewhere in there Mitch Marner won a Nobel Peace Prize, and we learned that the season rests on the shoulders of none other than Wayne Simmonds.
Somebody get me some Pepto.
Toronto Maple Leafs Are Pretty Good
The Leafs are on a bit of a cold streak, and hey, it happens to everyone. But here is the thing: they have an awesome team, and their losing streak coincides with a bunch of stuff that is too statistically weird to continue for long.
Stuff such as:
Matthews, Marleau, Nylander, and Kadri all going way too long without a goal.
The power-play being oh for its last four hundred. Or whatever. Thing is, as bad as it has done, the chances are there and it’s just a matter of time before they start converting.
Andersen has played once this year.
And on and on.
I think that its a positive sign that this recent run of losing could easily have been averted if just a couple more power play goals went in.Or the goalie wasn’t injured. Or Matthews wasn’t on an eight game scoreless streak. These aren’t longshots, these are frequent occurrences whose absences is significant but not worrisome.
What I’m trying to say is that a normal, completely reliable and expected amount of production from Matthews and the powerplay would have hidden the Leafs bad play enough to give them a winning record during their recent streak of bad play.
If you can win games when you shouldn’t, then you’re definitely a contender. That is probably the mark of a team worthy of winning a championship – they win even when they don’t deserve to.
Tampa recently won something crazy like 18 of 20 and there is no reason the Toronto Maple Leafs can’t do something similar once their power-play starts clicking.
Before you start burning all your Leafs paraphernalia remember that this is a team that has only dressed it’s optimal lineup two or three times, and each of those times featured a superstar playing his first or second game back from an extended absence.
When the Leafs best lineup actually gets a few games together and starts to click, other teams will be terrified to play them. The fact that they’re a top ten team and that hasn’t even happened should give everyone a big jolt of optimism, and the strength not to cut letters out of magazines and mail them to Jake Gardiner.
William Nylander will start to play better. There isn’t an easier prediction to ever make in this world. It’s a 100% guaranteed fact that if he keeps playing like he has been for the last seven or eight games, he’ll score around one point per game.
Take what the Leafs were in December, back when they could have beaten Tampa and been only four points out of first. Add the real William Nylander to that, and a defenseman soon to be acquired, and you’re looking at an awesome team.
When will those too things show up? Very soon. Nothing could be easier to predict.