Toronto Maple Leafs: If You Lose Big, Don’t Overreact

The Toronto Maple Leafs are a 100 point, seventh overall team that under-achieved in the regular season.

If you consider that the Toronto Maple Leafs played 29 games without one of Nazem Kadri, Freddie Andersen or Auston Matthews in the line-up (35% of the season), then they probably did better than they should have.

Additionally, William Nylander missed a half season between holding out and getting up to game speed, the team’s record in one-goal games (essentially random) which was 21st in the NHL, and was worse than a year ago. Additionally, their power-play was hampered by a low shooting percentage.

All this happened, and the Leafs still managed 100 points.

Please don’t read this as making excuses.  This is meant to illustrate that the team is so good that they were able to overcome adversity and still post 100 points.  If the Leafs are a 100 point team anyways, it’s scare to imagine how good they’d be if everything was clicking and everyone was healthy.

And this brings me to Tampa Bay.

Leafs and Lightning

The Leafs and Tampa both have very good teams.  Tampa had 62 wins, and won the President’s Trophy by about 20 points.  Yet, if you go through their roster, it’s not like on paper it’s significantly better than Toronto’s.

This year’s Tampa could just have easily been the Leafs if everything went right for them.  In a salary capped, professional league, it’s pretty rare for one team to me so much better, and a lot of it has to do with luck.

Tampa won 77.4% of their one-goal games,(nhl.com), while the next best team in hockey won only 63% of theirs.  Tampa was the only team with a shooting-percentage on the PP that was over 20%.

Again, these are two stats that NHL teams playing other NHL teams have essentially no control over.

Tampa has the best team in hockey, but their good luck in certain areas is what elevates their point total so far ahead of the rest of the league.  Their upset loss to the Blue Jackets is certainly surprising, but this information should go a long way in explaining how it is possible.

And it’s the number one reason why the Lightning shouldn’t overreact to this loss.

The media narratives that follow a meltdown of these proportions are ridiculous. Who will pay for this? Who won’t be back? Should we fire the coach? I heard he doesn’t get along with Stamkos!

It’s a joke.

Analysts and management types need to realize that when two professional teams meet, the results are largely random, and that because of that, making huge adjustments based on results is almost always a mistake.

The Lightning have the best roster in the NHL.  A player on their team stands the chance to win every major award, including the coach.  As the Leafs have demonstrated, a team like this even when things go awry is still good for 100 points.

As Tampa has demonstrated, 20 points ahead of everyone else almost begs for regression, and sometimes it kicks your ass. The Lightning showed up.  They played OK.  Things just didn’t happen for them, and they were overdue for a run of lousy play.

They should change nothing.  Sure, upgrade the roster if you can, but don’t think you need a new coach, GM, or that Stamkos’ lack of points in four games means he’s suddenly not one of the best players in the world.

For Tampa, it sucks that they lost, but they should treat their offseason the same way they would have if they had won the Cup.

Winner is hard, that’s why it matters so much.

The Toronto Maple Leafs should keep the same thing in mind – they’ve got a great team, and win or lose, they too have to stay the course.