Toronto Maple Leafs Play a Nearly Perfect Game Against Predators

The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Nashville Predators soundly by a score of 3-0 Tuesday night.

Though it was a one-goal game for most of the night, the Toronto Maple Leafs dominated and the game was only ever close on the scoreboard, and only then thanks to Predators goalie Juuse Saros.

This was a fantastic game for the Leafs from the top line all the way down to the fourth line, the defense, and the goalie.

It was probably the Leafs best game of the year.

Toronto Maple Leafs Flirt With Perfection

There were a couple mistakes the Leafs made that led to odd-man rushes, and if their luck was very bad, they could have lost this game.  But outside of two, maybe three mistakes (most of which happened in the fist part of the first period) the Leafs were fantastic. (All stats naturalstattrick.com). 

They controlled the puck and dictated the pace of play, and could easily have won this in a blowout just on Auston Matthews goals alone.  Matthews scored, had a goal called back because it impossibly didn’t cross the line, almost scored on a half-spin dangle, and was stymied by at least two other incredible saves by Saros.

Jack Campbell posted his third shutout of the season and he’s officially the Vezina frontrunner at this point, but even he couldn’t hold a candle tonight to Auston Matthews.

In another universe they are currently celebrating the first five goal performance of Matthews’ career.  He had four shots, seven individual high-danger scoring chances, a goal and an assist overall.  At 5v5, he had a dominant  73% Corsi rating, while the Leafs outshot Nashville 8-1 while he was on the ice.

Matthews finished the game with an 85% expected-goals rating.  He has seven goals and 14 points in 14 games this year, which sounds good, until you realize that those are laughably bad stats compared to how he’s played.  Eventually, Matthews is going to pot a few hattricks in the same week in order to even out his luck and bring his shooting percentage back to normal.

As for the Leafs, they controlled 61% of the play overall, and had over 70% of the game’s dangerous chances.  The Predators should have lost this game by a touchdown.  The Leafs played fantastic and have now won four games in a row, and nine out of their last ten games.

The win moves the Leafs to 11-5-1 which is good for second in the Atlantic and two points out of first overall. The Leafs are second in the NHL with 11 ROW (Carolina leads with 12), sixth in Corsi,  and second overall in expected-goals percentage.

Next up, the Rangers on Thursday.