3 Toronto Maple Leafs That Actually Played Well and Deserve Praise

TORONTO, ON - FEBRUARY 29: Frederik Andersen #31 of the Toronto Maple Leafs watches the corner against the Vancouver Canucks during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on February 29, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Canucks 4-2. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - FEBRUARY 29: Frederik Andersen #31 of the Toronto Maple Leafs watches the corner against the Vancouver Canucks during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on February 29, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Canucks 4-2. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
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Toronto Maple Leafs
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 03: John Tavares #91 of the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

It’s been a couple of days now since the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated from the play-in series against Columbus Blue Jackets and it sucks.

It’s been a couple of days now since the Toronto Maple Leafs have been eliminated by the Columbus Blue Jackets and it sucks to be honest with you.

However they played a pretty good series against a pretty good and well coached team, although they are the better team and should’ve won the series.

With that being said there were some stand out players on the Toronto Maple Leafs who played great in the five games against Columbus.

3. John Tavares – 29 years old – C

2019-20 play-in series stats – 5 GP – 2 G – 1 A – 3 PTS 

At my number three spot to start this list is the teams captain, John Tavares. Now when you’re looking at his stats through the teams five games against Columbus it may not seem all that impressive coming from a first line centre who is playing 20 minutes a night.

However the puck just wasn’t going in for the Toronto Maple Leafs and it was hard on the team and it was hard for the fans to watch this team that is such an offensive juggernaut but they just couldn’t score.

Other than the team not being able to score with the amount of shots they took throughout the series, Tavares was one of the few players who kept shooting and was all over the ice making plays and trying to help lead this team to victory.

John Tavares notched two goals along with one assist for three points through five games, and after being pretty invisible in game one he stepped it up through games two to five and gave it all he got but it just wasn’t enough for this Toronto Maple Leafs team to get passed Columbus and their solid defence core along with their two stud goaltenders as well. (Stats NHL.com)