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Toronto Maple Leafs and the NHL Awards at the Half-Way Mark

By James Tanner

TORONTO, ONTARIO - AUGUST 04: Morgan Rielly #44 of the Toronto Maple Leafs carries the puck against 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: Morgan Rielly #44 of the Toronto Maple Leafs carries the puck against 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 are still leading the NHL.

Halfway through the strangest season in NHL history, the Toronto Maple Leafs are showing that they are everything their many critics denied they were.  A contender. A tough team with heart, offensive ability and defensive capable.

The Leafs are a young team getting their first taste of the contender life.  The Lightning have been doing this for years, and their experience and past success may give them an edge at the current moment, but the Leafs really seem to be at the beginning of something special.

With the trade deadline on the horizon and most teams approaching the halfway mark, I figured it would be a good time to look at the NHL awards races.

NHL Awards

The Toronto Maple Leafs don’t really have anyone competing for any end-of-season awards at this point, unfortunately.

Auston Matthews is having an incredible season and his 21 goals in 25 games pace is incredible, but in the NHL awards race, that doesn’t matter.  For whatever reason, assists are considered just as valuable as goals and the award goes to the Art Ross winner most of the time.

McDavid has only six more points at 5v5 in five more games, and Matthews has more goals, but there’s a 15 point gap in total points and you can’t expect the voters to overcome that.  Right now McDavid is the heavy favorite, but Matthews and Marner remain in the mix.

The Toronto Maple Leafs don’t have a Calder trophy candidate, nor do they have a Selke candidates.  Sheldon Keefe and Kyle Dubas are probably both heavy favorites to win best coach and best GM, but I’m not sure people care too much about those awards.

The other two big awards are the Norris and the Vezina, and I don’t think the Leafs really have a horse in either race. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Freddie Andersen has been like a store brand product you probably wouldn’t notice if someone swapped it out for the real thing –  basically he’s been OK.  He isn’t in the Vezina conversation at this point, but maybe that’s because it isn’t a good conversation.

Morgan Rielly has 22 points and is tied for third in defenseman scoring.  Of the 45 NHL defenseman who have played at least 450 minutes, he is sixth in goals for percentage, and eight in expected goals percentage at 5v5.

With Rielly on the ice so far this year, in all situations, the Toronto Maple Leafs are winning 46-22.  That’s the best in the league, and if you account for luck and look at what is “expected” he drops to second – behind Tyson Barrie of all people!  This is of course skewed by the Leafs insane powerplay, but the fact is they do great when he plays.

Next. The 5 Thought Roundup. dark

If the season ended today Rielly would probably not even get a nomination, but you could argue that he should .  He and Matthews are the only two Leafs with any shot at one of the NHL’s major awards.  A previous version of this article mistakenly used all-purpose stats as 5v5 stats and has been corrected.

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