Toronto Maple Leafs: The Redemption of Michael Hutchinson Is Complete

The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Edmonton Oilers yet again on Monday night, by a score of 3-0.

The victory gives the Toronto Maple Leafs a 4-1-1 record over the Oilers and gives them a record of 17-4-2 on the season.  This isn’t good for just first place in the Canadian Division, it’s good for an incredible eight point lead over the second place Oilers, with a game in hand.

The Leafs are the best team in the NHL, and they lead the league in points, wins, regulation wins, and points percentage.  They also lead the NHL in goals, and 5v5 goals.  Incredibly, despite going 0 for 11 on the power play less than a week ago, (spread across two games) they still have the most power-play goals in the NHL, as well as the most power-play goals per minute of power-play time.

They are third in the NHL in 5v5 save percentage, and fourth overall in all-situations save-percentage.  They are an absolute dominating force and they haven’t even come close to dressing anything like their full lineup at all this season, as they have faced a high number of injuries.

But despite all that, the thing to talk about is Michael Hutchinson, the fourth string goalie on the team when the season started.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Michael Hutchinson

Last year did not go well for Hutchinson.  The Leafs used him as their regular back-up goalie for most of the season and he was arguably the least effective player in the entire NHL.  Had Hutchinson just been able to post his career average numbers, the Leafs would have had a bye to the first round of the playoffs last summer.

Of course, much of an NHL goalie’s performance is random and unpredictable, and Hutchinson is clearly better than he showed last year.  That is why it is so nice to see circumstances (Leafs being interested in him, Dell getting waived, two other injured goalies) allow him to redeem himself.

And redeem himself he has.

Michael Hutchinson just posted a shutout against Connor McDavid’s Edmonton Oilers, one of the hardest things an NHL goalie can do. And full kudos to the rest of the team for shutting them out twice in a row. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Hutchinson now owns a ridiculous .943 save percentage on the season.  Good for him.  As for the Leafs, I don’t even know how to begin to describe that game.  They started out by getting smoked by an obvious determined Oilers team, only to somehow be up 2-0 while losing 8-2 in shots.

After that, it seemed to me that it was pretty much all Oilers, who outshot the Leafs 31-23 overall, and worse at 5v5.  Still, who cares? It wasn’t pretty but the Leafs were without their best player and their two best goalies and still beat the second place team in their division.