Toronto Maple Leafs: Evenly Matched Teams My….Left Foot

The Toronto Maple Leafs easily beat the Winnipeg Jets last night in a game that was not as close as it seemed.

The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Jets have played five games, and the Leafs have won three of them, making it seem like they are two close teams.  They’re both at the top of the North Division and so it’s easy enough to consider them equals.

But they aren’t equals, not even close.  The Leafs are, along with Colorado and Tampa, one of the three best teams in the world.  The Jets are a middling non-contender.

The only reason the division is so close is because the Leafs went on a losing streak where they lost six of eight while their starting goalie returned too early from an injury and played like complete garbage.  Then their second goalie was injured and they have had to start Michael Hutchinson in 20% of their total games – this is the guy was a) the single worst NHL player last season and b) their 4th string goalie when the season started.

During this time, their best player, Auston Matthews was either out of the lineup or unable to take advantage of his league-best shot due to a wrist injury.

Oh, and add in the fact that their league-best power-play has gone 1-for-31 lately.  This is more of a complete fluke than it is something to worry about, but it’s important to note that even with the goalie troubles and the Matthews injury, that even just a league-average power-play likely would have prevented the Leafs from sliding back into the pack, standings-wise.

So if you put the Leafs and Jets respective records in context, you see that it took basically a “Mr. Burns Softball Team” worth of anomalies to make them seem even.  Now let’s look at the head to head.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Jets Head to Head

The Leafs got a rarity last night – three straight power plays.  They (of course) failed to score on any of them, and if they had, the game would have been over in the first. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).

Then the refs, seeing the disparity, gave the Leafs four straight penalties so that the game could be even.  It worked!  The Jets scored a power-play goal to make the game seem closer than it was.

But it was never close.

The Leafs out-chanced the Jets 12-2 in the first period at 5v5.  By then it was 2-0 and pretty much over.  The rest of the game saw the Leafs play smart and limit the Jets dangerous chances, despite having the lead.  It was a clinic.

The game finished, the Leafs won, and they did so with a 67% expected-goals percentage, which is par for the course when they play the Jets.

Here are the expected-goals stats for the Leafs in their five games against Winnipeg this year: 72%, 63%, 68%, 67% and 40%.

That is a complete domination. That should be a 4-1 record, which is only one game of difference between that and the actual record, but it’s significant because if the Jets goalie didn’t steal a game, no one would think these teams were “evenly matched.”

They are not.  The Jets have one of the NHL’s best goalies, and the Leafs are much better in terms of offense, defense, special teams, depth and number of elite players.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are first in the North Division and have now won four of their past five, and have a five-game points streak.  They’ve done this despite playing 20% of the season with their fourth sting goalie, and despite the fact that their power play has taken two weeks off.

Essentially playing with one hand tied behind their back, the Leafs are one point out of first place overall.  As for being “evenly matched”….. They are evenly matched in the way that Arnold Schwarzenegger is “evenly matched” against the 300 guys he takes out in the movie Commando.  Still, it’s fun to watch and it’s cute people think these teams are close, so I guess I can’t complain.