Toronto Maple Leafs: IF the NHL Season Is Over…

The Toronto Maple Leafs Season may be over.

Whether or not the Toronto Maple Leafs and the NHL resume their season is anyone’s guess at this point.

But if the season is in fact over, then there are some things that need to be pointed out.

Things like who finishes were, who wins what, and what notes will go into the history books.

If the the NHL Season Does Not Resume:

If the season is over, the Boston Bruins win the President’s trophy.

The Toronto Maple Leafs make the Playoffs.

Not every team has played the same amount of games, so points-percentage would have to decide playoff seeds.

That would mean that the Islanders are in the second wild card spot, while the Blue Jackets are out.

Leon Draisaitl wins the Art Ross Trophy by 12 points over teammate Connor McDavid.

Auston Matthews would finish with 80 points in 70 games, good for ninth overall. 

Matthews, however, finishes with three more goals (30 total) than anyone else in 5v5 situations.

Panarin and MacKinnon finish with 43 primary points at 5v5, with Matthews just two back.

The Toronto Maple Leafs finish 12th overall, with a record of 36-25-9, which is a lot better than you’d think given people’s general complaining nature about the team.

Given their 1-5 record in the shootout (where results are a coin-flip), and their weak start to the season under Mike Babcock, the Toronto Maple Leafs had a much better record and season that it seems.

The Leafs finished 8th by point-percentage overall since Sheldon Keefe took over.  St.Louis, who has the 5th best record in the NHL over this period has the exact same record as the Leafs do, but they played, and won, two extra games.

The fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs are more or less the 5th best team since they switched coaches is absolutely crazy given how people act like this is a garbage team going nowhere.

Anyways, those are the things that are true if the season is over. I hope it isn’t because the Toronto Maple Leafs have their best shot at a Stanley Cup in years.

Even though the Leafs will almost certainly be playing Tampa if the playoffs do happen, their chances to win are better than people probably think.

The difference between Tampa and Toronto’s records comes down to goaltending.  Tampa has a 5v5 save percentage of 92.53% which is too high and not sustainable even if they have the best goalie in the world (they might, but I don’t think so).  They rank 7th in the NHL.

Tampa is also 2nd in PDO (save + shooting percentage, which measures luck). (All stats for this article, naturalstattrick.com).

The Toronto Maple Leafs, on the other hand, have gotten the 28th best goaltending, and the have the 20th ranked PDO rating.

In a seven game series, those numbers will be largely irrelevant because there is no real reason (based on talent or strategy) that Tampa should get better goaltending or shoot at a higher percentage than the Leafs.

The Leafs lead the season series 2-1, and match-up nicely against the the Lightning who are built similarly, but probably aren’t as deep, and probably don’t have as much high-end talent.

If Andersen can play as good as Vasilevskiy, the Toronto Maple Leafs would have a strong chance of advancing.