The Toronto Maple Leafs are the best team in the NHL.
With a 27-10-3 record, the Toronto Maple Leafs are once again leading the President’s Trophy race for the top regular season team. They are third by points-percentage, but it isn’t the results that make them the best – it’s their roster.
That roster was on display last night was Auston Matthews potted his league-leading 28th goal, Jack Campbell notches his tenth straight win (to go along with the best goalie stats in the NHL) and even T.J Brodie scored to remind us that the Leafs blue-line is among the best in hockey as well.
The Leafs have now won eight of nine games, and picked up points in nine straight, but the crazy thing is that before this streak, they lost five out of six games to some pretty bad teams in games where those bad teams got excellent goaltending and the Leafs were dressing a post-injury Andersen who obviously wasn’t right.
The point here is that the results don’t really speak to how good the Leafs actually are – they have a seven point lead on the second place Oilers which could easily be in the double digits. This team is just coming together now and I really believe this is just scratching the surface of their potential.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Canadiens
Ironically, since they’re the worst team in the division, but the Senators are the only team that has really given the Leafs any trouble this year. The Leafs have pretty much easily taken care of the Oilers, Flames, Canucks, Canadiens and Jets (Leafs stats vs Winnipeg are completely dominant despite the record), but the Senators, for whatever reason, have given them trouble.
I bring this up only to point out that the Oilers record, and the statistics of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are super padded by their dominance of the Oilers. The Oilers are 8-0 vs the Senators and both their superstars have twenty points each in their games this year.
I’m not trying to say it shouldn’t count, or that it’s fraudulent (the Leafs had the same opportunity) I’m just pointing out that the gap between the Leafs and the second best team in their division is a lot larger than it might seem if you just looked at the standings.
One final thing: he didn’t score, but Alex Galchenyuk played great again last night. The Tavares and Galchenyuk line was once again near 60% puck possession , and Tavares and Galchneyuk combine for a 64% expected goals percentage when on the ice together, which is 10% higher than Tavares without Galchenyuk. The sample size is still small, but it appears the Leafs have found a diamond in the rough here. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
Anyways, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in first place, they are going to play the Senators on Saturday, and hopefully William Nylander is all right and ends up being able to play.