The Toronto Maple Leafs got some bad results from their recent three game Western Road Swing.
The bad results have given us yet another helping of short-sighted, emotional Toronto Maple Leafs takes.
Fire Dubas.
Fire Keefe.
Marner Sucks.
They don’t try.
They can’t score.
They can’t defend.
My feet hurt.
etc.
Frankly, it’s a little tiring. The NHL season is long and includes many ebbs and flows, some fun, some frustrating.
Toronto Maple Leafs: No Changes Needed
Ultimately the Toronto Maple Leafs should easily beat three bad teams. Except……when you’re missing five regulars from every game, you aren’t dressing a very good team.
It continues to amaze me that people were psyched up and excited when the Leafs traded for a back-up goalie and a fourth liner, but these same people do not accept that a team missing a top-five NHL defenseman, their best penalty killer, their second best defenseman, and two top-six wingers (one of whom scored at a first-line rate last season) will be negatively affected.
Yes it sucks when the league’s best offense loses three straight games because they can’t score, but really, the one thing we know they are good at went into a slump and that happens.
It sucks, and I wish they won, but really, if you lose because you have an off night with your strongest attribute, I don’t think it’s a problem.
The power-play has been scuffing, but it took a 1-14 run for them to fall out of the top spot. It’s true – prior to this road trip, the Toronto Maple Leafs had the best power-play in the NHL since the day Sheldon Keefe was hired.
People are frustrated, but there’s some things to be excited about.
Freddie Andersen has two shutouts in his last four starts. Considering it’s mostly his fault how badly the Toronto Maple Leafs have struggled this year, that’s a really good sign.
Jack Campbell has been great too. Considering the Leafs have gotten almost nothing from the back-up position, that’s also good.
And even though the defense has been missing half their starters for the last few weeks, the Leafs seem to be getting strong defensive play from their entire team over the last little while (admittedly, the goaltending plays a big part in this perception).
The fact is, the Leafs are an offensive power-house that has strong team stats in almost every important category. Even though they aren’t great defensively, the percentages are all in their favor due to how good they are offensively.
The goalies are finally playing well, and Mitch Marner won’t slump forever.
The team is starting to get healthy and there’s a lot of reasons to think that when that happens, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be a very tough team to beat.
In the meantime, they’ve now played nine games without both of Jake Muzzin and Morgan Rielly, and despite that they hold onto a playoff spot by five points.
It’s not much, but there’s reason for optimism. They need to stay the course. Non one needs to be fired, and big changes are not needed.