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Toronto Maple Leafs: Almost 100 Scoring Chance More

By James Tanner|
TORONTO, ON - FEBRUARY 6: Auston Matthews #34 of the Toronto Maple Leafs heads back to the bench after scoring against the Vancouver Canucks during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on February 6, 2021 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Canucks 5-1. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - FEBRUARY 6: Auston Matthews #34 of the Toronto Maple Leafs heads back to the bench after scoring against the Vancouver Canucks during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on February 6, 2021 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Canucks 5-1. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)

The Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the Philadelphia Flyers tonight, in Philadelphia.

Coming off a loss to the LA KIngs on Monday (a game in which they played well enough to win) the Toronto Maple Leafs will be looking to win for the sixth time in seven games tonight and remain hot.

The Leafs have been absolutely fantastic to start the year, fourth overall in both expected-goals percentage and Corsi, which indicates that there are plenty of good times ahead for the team that has so far not had the wins to match their play.

Toronto is not going to be at the bottom of the NHL shooting percentage rankings for much longer.  How do I know this?

Why the Toronto Maple Leafs Will Only Get Better

It’s simple: for the last 208 games before this season the Leafs were third in the NHL with a shooting percentage over 10%. 208 games is obviously more indicative of who they are than the last 12 games. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).

And if you need more proof that the Toronto Maple Leafs aren’t scoring as much as they should be consider this: the Leafs have 98 more scoring chances than Florida, and 19 less goals. How long do you suppose that can last?

Or consider that Toronto has 96 more scoring chances than the second best team in the NHL at creating scoring chances. The Leafs are getting seven more scoring chances per game than the next best team.

As you can see in the @jfresh tweet above, the Panthers are scoring the most in the NHL above what they should be scoring, and the Leafs are ranked 32nd.  This is 100% guaranteed to even out as time goes on.  I would expect, given their talent, for the Leafs to eventually top this chart, so their potential swing is huge.

At 5v5, Matthews has 2 goals on 30 shots.

Nylander has 2 goals on 36 shots.

Bunting 2 goals on 26 shots.

Simmonds 1 goal, 26 shots.

Kase 1 goal, 29 shots.

Engvall 0 for 22.

Ritchie 0 for 12.

The entire blue-line 1 goal on 77 shots.

Suffice to say, this is a bad-luck situation and time will see the numbers correct themselves.

Furthermore, the Leafs power-play currently sits 11th in the NHL with a 24% conversion rate.  That’s actually not too bad, but one spot it will for-sure get better is the shooting-percentage of everyone who isn’t Matthews or Nylander.

While the players with the best shots on the team are propping up the PP, the rest of the team has just four goals on 47 shots, which is 8.5% and sure to improve with time.

The bottom line is this: The Toronto Maple Leafs are the NHL’s best offensive team and once the goals start to match the underlying numbers, which they will, they will be nearly unbeatable. As it stands, the Leafs are keeping their heads above water, but they’ve really only played one or two games all season where they deserved to lose the game.

This is a team on the verge of greatness, and I think that we’re about to see something very special once these numbers correct themselves.

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