Toronto Maple Leafs On the Verge of Being the Best Team in the NHL

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost in disappointing fashion the Bruins.

What makes this a frustrating loss for the Toronto Maple Leafs is that they have so many things going right for them that if any of the seemingly major things that happened had occurred, they’d easily have won.

It’s easy to get annoyed at any number of things that happened over the past two weeks. But we should remember that the Leafs outplayed the Bruins at 5v5 and the team that does that almost always wins.

The Bruins got pretty lucky, and the series was a coin-flip in the first place.  The Leafs were one Andersen injury in December away from being the second best team in the NHL, and their reward was to play basically the third best team.

What can you do?

In this light, it’s scary to think how good them might become.

For Instance…..

The Toronto Maple Leafs are still playing if:

Kadri didn’t get suspended.

Andersen plays like his normal self in game seven.

Gardiner and Dermott are not garbage after coming back from injuries.

Injuries don’t prevent them from pairing Muzzin with Rielly down the stretch,  as was the plan.

Auston Matthews doesn’t miss a quarter of the season.

Hyman doesn’t play the last three games on a torn ACL.

The team can kill a penalty in the playoffs.

The refs do their job and kick Jake DeBrusk out of game three.

The coach realizes how bad Brown and Marleau are at scoring and plays Ennis and Moore in their place.

The team isn’t forced to break-up Matthews and Nylander.

Mitch Marner gets a shot on net in games five and six.

The Bruins don’t open game seven with the flukiest piece of crap goal of all time.

The NHL properly calls penalties and doesn’t feel the need to even-up the calls.

Tukka Rask doesn’t play amazing in the second period of game seven.

Babcock doesn’t put Patrick Marleau on the ice with the goalie pulled.

Babcock doesn’t roll four lines with the season on the line, in the third period and down by a goal and then two.

Babcock waits till his team has puck possession before pulling the %$^& goalie.

Auston Matthews gets more ice time.

They put a centre on the PK.

They did not play Nikita Zaitsev and Ron Hainsey in their top-four.

The team doesn’t over-rely on a preposterous amount of stretch passes.

They don’t stack their power-play and then take it off the ice after 55 seconds.

Anyone one of those things happens, and the Toronto Maple Leafs easily win. Now, you can take that as a frustrating thing or a positive thing.  This isn’t a team that is very far away from being the best in the NHL.

And, guess what? Matthews and Marner are now one step closer to their peak seasons.