2 Random Things That Can Help the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs have got a great roster and, entering the season, should be the Stanley Cup Favorites.

Last year the Toronto Maple Leafs continued their upward trajectory, but the season was somewhat disappointing.

On one hand, the Leafs proved that they were among the league’s best teams, but they failed again to make it out of the first round of the playoffs, and they didn’t improve on their previous seasons point totals despite adding John Tavares.  (In fact they finished with five points less after 82 games).

On the other, the results often don’t paint the full picture, and if you account for lack and radom factors (shooting percentage, injuries, hold-outs, record in one goal games, power-play) the Toronto Maple Leafs were clearly a better a team with John Tavares than they were without him.

The Leafs this Year

While some annoying fans and media like to gripe about three straight playoff losses in the first round, the team really has come a long way from Auston Matthew’s first game in 2016-17 to their loss against Boston last year.

Yes, the results have been the same, but the roster is getting better, the young players are approaching their primes, and the team is learning and improving.

They over-achieved by making the playoffs in Matthews’ rookie season, then they failed to advance against Boston twice in series they probably deserved to win both times.

Additionally the NHL seeding system gives them a terrible first round matchup that should at least be a factor when considering whether or not to complain about their progress.

Regardless, there are two very easy ways in which the Leafs can improve this year.  These are luck based factors, so they really can’t control it, but given that they didn’t pan out last year, maybe they will this year.

The first is their record in one-goal games.  With the salary cap creating near full parity, the odds of coming out ahead in one-goal game are basically a coin-flip.

Tampa was 11-3 in one-goal games, while the Leafs were 6-5.  This is not because Tampa is better. If anything, the better team will play less one goal games (although you could say the same thing about a worse team, but we know both these teams are excellent).

This is a statistical fluke that helped Tampa lap the competition last year, but is not at all repeatable.  (Doesn’t mean it can’t happen again, just that the probability is very low). (Stats from hockey-reference.com).

Odds are that the Toronto Maple Leafs will do better than 6-5 in one-goal games this year.

The other spot for improvement is on the power-play.  The Leafs scored on 21% of their power-plays, which was 8th best in the NHL.  That is pretty good, but it’s even better when you consider that they were 20th in the league with a 12.4% shooting percentage.

Considering the firepower the Leafs have, that shouldn’t be too hard to improve on.

The power-play will score more, and the team’s record in one-goal games will be better.  Those are two things you can take to the bank, and they are two things that are nearly guaranteed to help the Leafs improve over last year’s record.