Toronto Maple Leafs: Occam’s Razor and the Easiest Solution Imaginable

The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost five games in a row.

It’s a rough streak, but things are never as good or as bad as they seem, and this applies to your current Toronto Maple Leafs.

Yeah, losing five in a row is bad, and their lack of determination in their last game was unfortunate.

But let’s relax and take a step back for a second.

The Real Reason They’re Playing Bad and How to Fix it

The Toronto Maple Leafs have missed one of John Tavares or Mitch Marner for half their games so far.

They played the first month without Travis Dermott or Zach Hyman.  Alex Kerfoot is injured and because of back-to-backs they’ve also been without Freddie Andersen for six games.

Speaking of back-to-backs, they’ve had six, five of which saw them play a rested team on the road.  This is extremely unusual. The Bruins just played their first  back-to-back on November 5th and have played just two so far.

Additionally, the Leafs turned over a third of their roster in the summer, and it’s been nearly a full calendar year since they’ve played a game with their optimal roster.

The Leafs also have pretty decent numbers across the board.

They are second in the NHL in puck-possession.

They lead the NHL in total shots.

Yes, there is definitely a decline in the Leafs high-danger shots, and that is the cost that has incurred from Babcock trying to get them to play a better defensive game (which, despite how it seems, is actually working).   This is the main reason I think the Leafs need a coaching change, but let’s come back to this later.

The Leafs are putting up good numbers in the stats that, over time, lead to winning.  They happen to be 20th in shooting percentage, and 26th in save percentage.

Their 98 PDO suggests a team that is getting unlucky.

Furthermore, the Leafs goals/60 on the power-play rank them 20th in the NHL.  Their 12 power-play goals rank them 17th.

I know people want to blame roster construction, the coach, the GM, the trainer, me, a koala etc. but the reason the Leafs are doing poorly is pretty simple:

Injuries, schedule, bad luck on shot and shooting percentage, and a lack of power-play scoring.  Oh and the fact that in the NHL teams who score first win over 75% of the time, and the Leafs have scored first just 5 times out of 22 games.  That is a total and complete anomaly.  You couldn’t do that on purpose if you tried, so it’s not really indicative of anything other than bad luck.

I know you won’t like this explanation.  You’ll say it’s just an excuse.  Well I say excuses are also reasons, and these are a lot more real than unquantifiable things like heart and leadership.

It’s unexciting. It’s unsexy.  But guess what? The simplest explanation is the most likely one.

Yeah the coach is annoying, but coaches at the NHL level don’t make a huge difference, contrary to popular belief.  The team is not lacking heart, compete, or anything like that.  The reasons are so simple, most people don’t want to believe in them.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will get better than .900 goaltending.

Their shooting percentage will go up.

They’ll score more power-play goals.

They’ll get healthier.

Their schedule will get much, much easier.

They’ll randomly start getting the first goal of the game.

And eventually, their roster will play like themselves.  John Tavares will be better. Tyson Barrie will be better.  They’ll eventually move Travis Dermott up the lineup and Cody Ceci down.  (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Ironically, the Leafs aren’t really doing that badly.  It’s frustrated to lose five in a row – but they lost five in a row where they played eight games in a week with two back-to-backs and half their lineup missing.

Literally every reason they are doing badly will self correct – scoring first, the schedule, the power-play, save percentage, shooting percentage etc.

This team will recover, they will make the playoffs, and they will be the Stanley Cup competitor everyone thought they were.

This I guarantee.