The Toronto Maple Leafs finished in third place in the Atlantic Division last year.
For the second straight year, the Toronto Maple Leafs finished behind the Lightning and Bruins, and were the victims of a ridiculous playoff seeding system that saw them play the Bruins in the first round, despite also being one the NHL’s best teams.
At 5v5 the Leafs finished with the same amount of goals as the Lightning, and allowed only 13 more goals. Boston allowed 33 less goals than Toronto did, but the Leafs scored 50 more goals.
All three teams finished closely in team-Cosi – Boston was 6th in the NHL, Toronto was 8th and Tampa 9th.
Special Teams Problems
Essentially, the 5v5 play – where about 90% of the game is played – of these three teams was even. The difference comes on the power play where Tampa was the best team in the NHL, Boston was 3rd and Toronto 8th.
The Lightning scored almost 30 more goals than the Leafs, while the Bruins scored 20 more (while scoring 50 less 5v5 goals).
This is good news for the Toronto Maple Leafs – they’re far more likely to repeat their 5v5 performance this year than Tampa or Boston is to repeat their PP magic, which should make for a better result in the standings.
But the startling thing is not the difference in power-play goals, but the difference in opportunities. Colorado led the NHL with 286 PP opportunities. Tampa had 262, Boston 251.
Failure of Referees Impacts Leafs
The Leafs were last with 211 power play opportunities.
So even though they had the 8th most efficient power-play (and based on their peripheral stats should have had the most efficient) they scored the 14th most goals (that’s really good considering they had the least amount of chances).
Looking at the NHL special team stats, there seems to be a strong correlation between power-play opportunities and penalties taken. (All stats for this article from foxsports.com).
If we look at each teams PP and PK opportunities, 20 of the NHL’s 31 teams had a 10 opportunity or less differential.
I think that that pretty conclusively shows that the NHL referees rely way too much on the practice of even-up calls.
This amounts to a dereliction of duty because the actions of teams should dictate how many penalties they get.
I assume this happens because referees are overly concerned with having a big effect on the game, but the irony is that in their attempts to avoid doing that, they’re still doing it.
The Leafs and Blue Jackets were by far the least penalized teams in the NHL last year, and they should be rewarded for following the rules.
Instead, they are punished by a lack of power-play opportunities. The Avalanche got 75 more power-play chances last year than the Leafs – that’s almost one per game.
The Avs led the NHL in both PP chances and PK chances. The Leafs were last in PP chances, and second last in PK chances.
To fix this, the Toronto Maple Leafs should be lobbying the NHL to fix the practice of even-up calls. That means that when a team gets a power-play, the ref should not automatically give a power-play to the other team next.
The Toronto Maple Leafs should be able to take huge advantage of the fact that they have the best power-play personnel in the league, and are the league’s second least penalized team.
If the NHL called the game according to the rules, the Leafs would have a huge advantage, but instead, the NHL’s most penalized team is actually the one being rewarded.
That is backwards and it is stupid. An NHL referee needs to call the game based on whatever happens, not out of fear of giving one team an advantage (which, they would deserve if the other team is playing dirty).
It would be in the Toronto Maple Leafs best interest to make this into an issue with the league.