The Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the Montreal Canadiens for the tenth and final time this regular season. I don’t even want to think about the fact that these teams could end up playing a total of 17 times this year, should the playoff get scary.
A single point tonight for your Toronto Maple Leafs, or a loss by the Oilers, will clinch the Leafs first division title since the 1999-2000 season. A time when Limp Bizkit ruled the airwaves (bad) and there were still airwaves to rule (good), people didn’t avoid eye contact while looking at their phone in the middle of a conversation (good) and the games had crowds (good).
It’s pretty bad that the Leafs have gone twenty years between division titles, but then again, this is the Leafs we are talking about, so I’m honestly shocked they did it within thirty years.
The Leafs still have a mathematical chance at the President’s Trophy, but that is unlikely. Still, currently they sit fourth overall by points-percentage in a season where there starting goalie was complete garbage and they had to rely on the emergence of a back-up goalie to get things done.
Speaking of Jack Campbell, he won’t play enough games to qualify for the title of best goalie in the NHL, but he’s been something approaching that in the 20 games he has played.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Canadiens
This will be the third time in a row these two teams will play, and the Leafs have absolutely destroyed the Habs (statistically) while winning one game decisively and losing another in OT that require Matthews and Marner not getting a shot on a two-on-oh to happen.
The Leafs have won six of their last seven games, and have points in seven straight. They have just three losses in regulation in their last 22 games.
This is clearly a great team, but it should be noted that they were a great team last year as well. If you read this blog frequently, then you know that last year I constantly pointed out that they were a top team getting bad goaltending. The Leafs were – statistically – just as good as Tampa and Boston last year, except for the fact that their 5v5 goaltending was ranked 24th in the league.
This year they are fourth. That’s the main difference, other than T.J Brodie, the only real changes were at the bottom of the lineup. Brodie is a great player, but he doesn’t make the goaltending all that much better. (stats from naturalstattrick.com).
The fact is, the Toronto Maple Leafs just got really unlucky last year, and hopefully this year things balance out, because if they do, this team can easily go all the way. They’ve assembled a great team, and now it’s just a matter of avoiding a hot goalie long enough for it to pay off.