The Toronto Maple Leafs limped to the finish of the NHL season back in March.
While trying to lock down a playoff spot earlier this spring, the Toronto Maple Leafs faced a challenge that every team comes across eventually:
Contrary to popular belief, injuries are one of the biggest factors in who wins in professional sports. In leagues where there is reasonable parity, and especially in ones with a salary cap, the healthiest competitive team is the most likely to win that league’s championship.
In the NHL, since goalies have such a disproportionally large effect on the outcome of games, the full impact of injuries often goes unnoticed because a goalie may go on a hot streak and make it seem like the team didn’t miss the injured player(s) very much.
The Toronto Maple Leafs suffered a lot of injuries this season, but critics often say that the performance of other similarly injured teams prevents that from being a reasonable excuse.
If you look at the three teams who also faced similar injury situations, however, you can see a common denominator.
The Penguins Tristan Jarry was forced into 33 games and posted a .921 save percentage. The Blue Jackets Elvis Merzlikens played 33 games of .923 save percentage, while Boston’s Tukka Rask had a just absolutely ridiculous .929 save percentage. (stats hockeydb.com).
Those are league-leading, Vezina-worthy numbers, and they were posted by goalies who had to play behind injury riddled rosters.
Unfortunately for the Leafs, Freddie Andersen had a terrible year and didn’t come anywhere close to covering for his injured teammates in the same way.
So when the Leafs went the entire season without once dressing their best roster, it was a problem.
When they missed their best defenseman for 23 games, it was very hard for them to win (worth pointing out: with Rielly and Keefe in the same game, the Leafs won over 70% of contests).
The Leafs played a game this year without Nylander, Anderson, Mikheyev, Rielly, Muzzin, and Johnsson. That is six regulars.
These things make a big difference.
The Leafs started the year without Travis Dermott and Zach Hyman. Then Tavares broke his finger. Mitch Marner missed a bunch of games.
Without a random goalie pulling a spare Vezina trophy out of his keester, the Toronto Maple Leafs were unable to win as many games as they should have.
And to me, the fact that they finished 8th overall, by points percentage, in the games that occurred once Sheldon Keefe took over, should be a real selling point for the potential of this roster.
A healthy Leafs team would be faced with potentially not dressing Rasmus Sandin, and would have an insane third line that featured either Johnsson, Hyman or Mikheyev on the left of Alex Kerfoot and Kasperi Kapanen.
So in conclusion, injuries matter a great deal, and only bad luck prevented the Toronto Maple Leafs from challenging the Bruins for the title of best team in the NHL.