The Toronto Maple Leafs have a great team, but no one seems to care very much anymore, thanks to so many disappointing playoff finishes.
The Toronto Maple Leafs may be regular season juggernauts, but until they finally breakthrough in the spring, they aren’t getting the benefit of the doubt, at least not from the media or any of their vocal fans.
It’s a bit of a shame, because the current roster is bearing the frustration from 50+ years without a cup, the terrible drafting of Mark Hunter, and the horrible General Managing of Lou Lamoriello, who set the team back years by signing Patrick Marleau and handing out a long term deal to Nikita Zaitsev.
It certainly isn’t Kyle Dubas’ fault that Lou entered the playoffs with Ron Hainsey and Nikita Zaitsev in his top four, or that Mike Babcock continued to treat Patrick Marleau like he was a first liner instead of a guy who should have already retired. Those two things prevented the Leafs from advancing during the final years of Matthews and Marner’s ELC. (all stats for this article naturalstattrick.com).
Unfortunately for Dubas, a lot of their brilliance has been unrecognized because of a past they can’t be blamed for, as well as a pandemic, a frozen cap and some untimely injuries (not to mention a shooting percentage that renders both their last two “failures” as nothing but bad luck).
But if you think Dubas is getting a raw deal, that is nothing to the incredible body of work Sheldon Keefe has put together in the last two seasons that has barely been mentioned, let alone acknowledged.
Sheldon Keefe and the Toronto Maple Leafs
Since his first game on November 21st 2019, the Leafs have been incredible, but few have noticed.
In Keefe’s 103 games, the Leafs are 62-29-12 which is the sixth best record in the NHL over that time, despite the fact that Freddie Andersen (2021) and Michael Hutchinson (2020) provided a ton of terrible goaltending over that period. Not to mention a 33 game power-play sabbatical that was somehow 30th in the league over that stretch. An incredible record, all things considered.
Under Keefe, the Leafs are winning over 60% of their games and getting points in 66% of them.
Over this period, at 5v5, the Toronto Maple Leafs are second in the NHL in goal scoring and third in expected-goal percentage (meaning that, if not for luck they would be the 3rd best team, not the 8th).
In addition, the Toronto Maple Leafs have achieved this success while getting just the 16th best goaltending (in 2020 Hutchinson was perhaps the single worst player in the NHL, while Andersen wasn’t much better last year). One of the best indicators for future performance is when a team out performs its goalie.
Incredibly, during the entire time of Keefe’s tenure, the Leafs have failed to put together a string of games where they were a) healthy b) scoring c) getting good goaltending and d) having success on the special teams.
The single reason I continue to believe in this team, core, manger, coach and plan is that they have played in such a way as to be the 3rd best team in hockey over the last two seasons without really ever getting on a run where everything was clicking.
I believe that when that time finally comes, the Leafs will be unstoppable. However, in the meantime, I think it’s worth acknowledging that despite two playoff series that were in no way his fault, Sheldon Keefe has done an incredible job as the Leafs coach so far.