Toronto Maple Leafs: If Doughty Is In Norris Race, Anything Can Happen

The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Winnipeg Jets last night and are now four points up on them in the Canadian Division standings.

The Toronto Maple Leafs not only lead the Canadian Division, but they are only a point off the pace for the President’s Trophy.  Unfortunately, competition for the regular season title is stiff this year, and there are three teams with 52 points, two with 51, and another three with 50.

Still, the Leafs are doing their job and as I pointed out in a previous piece, if the Hurricanes were to lose both their games in hand, the Leafs would be in first place by points-percentage.

While the novelty of the current divisions is interesting, it’s not doing a lot for the playoff races.  The North and the East divisions (the one with Boston) are set as far as the playoffs go.  The other two divisions all have three teams who are in, and one spot open.

With almost half a season to go, and only two playoff spots up for grabs, it’s not exactly a riveting end to the season.

Toronto Maple Leafs and the NHL Stats Leaders

Mitch Marner is having a great year and is currently ranked four in the NHL scoring race.  The Leafs winger is behind McDavid, Kane and Draisaitl.  Marner has no chance of capturing the Art Ross as he is almost 20 points behind McDavid, who is unreal.

Jack Campbell is second in the NHL in save percentage, although he has only played eight games.  Still, he won all of them and is rocking a .951% that is only slightly behind the Carolina Hurricanes Petr Mrazek.

Campbell’s 1.35 GAA is also second behind Marzek.  Despite the strong showing of both Campbell and Marazek, the Vezina seems to be Phillip Grubauer’s to lose.  He is currently leading me to a second place showing in my hockey pool.

In the race most exciting to Leafs fans, Auston Matthews leads the NHL with 24 goals, two ahead of Connor McDavid.  Making this all the more impressive is that Matthews scored 18 of his 24 goals in his first 18 games then played through a wrist injury that wouldn’t let him shoot the puck with his trademark mustard.  (nhl.com).

Had Matthews not been injured, it’s at least possible, though honestly pretty doubtful, that he could have stolen the Hart Trophy from Connor McDavid.  The only one who can do that is the voters who have already stolen two deserved Harts from McDavid so far in his young career.

I wonder what crazy excuses people will come up with to try and vote for Kane? Don’t believe it can happen, well check this out, where they inexplicably list Drew Doughty as a Norris contender. 

Doughty would be the Leafs fifth defenseman, and that isn’t even a hot take.  Morgan Rielly does in fact deserve some Norris consideration, but that’s an article for another day., Anyways, this crazy Doughty nonsense  maybe maybe gives Matthews an outside shot at the Hart down the stretch if he goes crazy.   Go Leafs!