Editor In Leaf
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Through 4 Games Toronto Maple Leafs Shooting Under 3 Percent

By James Tanner

TORONTO, ONTARIO - AUGUST 04: John Tavares #91 of the Toronto Maple Leafs scores a goal past Joonas Korpisalo #70 of the Columbus Blue Jackets during the third period in Game Two of the Eastern Conference Qualification Round prior to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoff at Scotiabank Arena on August 04, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ONTARIO - AUGUST 04: John Tavares #91 of the Toronto Maple Leafs scores a goal past Joonas Korpisalo #70 of the Columbus Blue Jackets during the third period in Game Two of the Eastern Conference Qualification Round prior to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoff at Scotiabank Arena on August 04, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images) /
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The Toronto Maple Leafs have been “Goalied” so far in their series against Columbus.

Through four games, the Columbus Blue Jackets have two goalies who have each gone on streaks of 50+ saves in a row.  That’s just bad luck for your Toronto Maple Leafs. 

As incredible as that is, it’s not a sustainable strategy for success.  And while a short series guarantees to relief in the form or regression to the mean, I think we should take five minutes and appreciate just how ridiculous a 2.4 shooting percentage is.

That’s right: at 5v5 (the most common game state) the Toronto Maple Leafs have scored on just 2.5% of their shots this series. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).

For context, the Leafs scored on 8.5% of their shots during the regular season. The Tampa Bay Lightning, led the NHL with a 9.71 shooting percentage, and the Detroit Red Wings were 31st with a 6.11 shotting percentage.

That is right, the Red Wings scored at an almost 3x better rate than the Leafs have so far.

If you’ve seen this series, you know that the Leafs have been extremely dangerous (creating more scoring chances per game than they did in the regular season).

You also know that both Korpisalo and Merzlikens have been, at times, amazing.

But it doesn’t matter how good a goalie is, over enough time he’s going to let in at least 7% of shots.  If you had a .930 save percentage for your career, you would be a guaranteed 1st ballot hall of famer and one of the best goalies of all time.

Martin Brodeur and Patrick Roy both let in about 9% of the shots they faced over their careers.  Dominik Hasek let in just under 8%.

So the fact is, the Leafs are tied at two going into game five, and in order to get here they needed a miraculous 3 goals in 4 minutes comeback that would have seemed stupid in a movie, but which actually happened.

But as lucky as that was to happen, they were equally unlucky to face two B-list goalies putting up numbers that make actual Hall of Fame goalies look bad.

The Leafs have just three 5v5 goals on 125 shots so far this series.  Tavares, Robertson and Matthews each have one goal.  Not sure how long you can keep those guys from scoring.

Let alone the fact that Rielly, Hyman, Nylander, Marner, and Mikheyev have combined for 44 shots without a goal.

Next. Baby, Have Some Faith.... dark

So there is no guarantee that the Leafs break out for a few 5v5 goals tonight, but the fact is, that mathematically, they are overdue.

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