5 Best Case Scenarios for the Toronto Maple Leafs

Jack Campbell Is For Real

I don’t know that Jack Campbell is for real, but his personality makes me think so.   If there is an easier pro athlete to cheer for, I’ve never heard of him.

But feelings aside, Campbell has a lot to prove.

Unless he’s the best goalie of all-time, the Toronto Maple Leafs won’t be getting over 80% of the possible points available to them when Campbell plays anymore, so some regression is in order.

The question is just how much?

The reason the Leafs aren’t too worried about Campbell is that while he was Vezina worthy last year, Freddie Andersen still played over half the games and was bloody awful.  This means that, on balance, the Leafs goaltending was about average.  Half the games were amazing, half were brutal.

Overall, the Leafs had the seventh best 5v5 goaltending in the NHL last year.  Let’s assume that their power-play returns to normal (not a big assumption, they were 5th best over 208 games prior to going in the tank midway through last season) then they can probably match last year’s finish with slightly worse goaltending.

I think it’s reasonable to expect that Campbell and Mrazek can combine to be slightly above average.  That’s good enough.

But, in a best case scenario, Jack Campbell turns out to be a legitimate superstar goalie – he’s a late bloomer, a la Tim Tomas (hopefully with better political views) and the Leafs are the best team in hockey.