The Toronto Maple Leafs are absolutely flying.
Fresh off a 3-0 win over the Flyers on Wednesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the Calgary Flames tonight, before playing Buffalo tomorrow.
I am not one for complaining, but back-to-back games in two different countries, 24 hours apart is total garbage scheduling.
But John Tavaers is back, so who cares? The schedule is dumb, but the Leafs should crush both these teams and roll their streak to eight of nine.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Calgary Flames
Last year Calgary was brutal, and the Leafs beat them by 22 points. Other than hiring Darryl Sutter and making their fans answer the question “is this how you want to win?” they really haven’t changed too much.
In fact, coaching and play style aside, they still stink. The Flames have a 7-3-3 record that is currently better than the Leafs. However, unless you think they are going to stay in second place in 5v5 save percentage and continue to save nearly 95% of shots, then they are going to slowly return to reality over time.
The Flames are 5th in the NHL In PDO and the Leafs are 22nd…..now, the Leafs actually have the roster to finish atop the league in PDO, but the fact that they are so much further down right now and yet still have the same amount of points, should tell you who the better team is.
It’s nice for Calgary to give their fans something to cheer about, but the Darryl Sutter style of hockey is the worst. The Leafs likely won’t be able to score their way out of trouble tonight, so I’d expect a very boring game against the league’s most boring team. (all stats from natutralstatrick.com).
But then again, Auston Matthews is overdue for some 5v5 goals, while the Flames are overdue to allow some…could be a match made in regression to the norm heaven.
The Leafs will also be getting a boost from the return of John Tavares, who is the NHL’s most underrated superstar, and whose injury last spring is the only reason that the Leafs are not currently referred to as the Defending Stanley Cup Champs.
*blacks out*
*comes to*
What’s going on? I think I overdid it there for a sec friends. To recap: The Leafs will play the Flames, in a possibly boring game.
The return of JT will hopefully assuage the Sutter effect and allow the game to be at least somewhat watchable.