Ladies and Gentleman, Your First Place Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs in first place in the NHL after an 8-3 drubbing of the Colorado Avalanche.

The Toronto Maple Leafs won their fifth straight game, which was their third straight five-game winning streak in their current 15-2 run.

All things are clicking for the Leafs:  Jack Campbell is neck-and-neck with Connor McDavid for Hart Trophy Consideration, Auston Matthews is scoring, the depth players are scoring, and the team is getting great special teams.

It’s a dream run, and while nothing this good is fully sustainable, the fact that it took an eight goal performance for the Leafs to move from 31st to 30th in the NHL’s Goals vs Expected-Goals rankings is an extremely encouraging thing for the future.

Toronto Maple Leafs Are in First Place

The Leafs are in first place, which is awesome, but it’s even better if you’ve spent the last two years defending their GM, coach, president, players, and optimistic fans.

It’s especially vindicating if you tried to tell people that leading the NHL last year wasn’t because of the Canadian Division being weak – it turns out it was just as hard as any other division.

The fact is, anyone should  have been able to predict that a team with 4 superstar forwards, three star defenseman, a ton of depth, and the best front office in sports would be good.

And congratulations go out to the folks at MLSE who, in the past, would have overreacted to the short-term results and panicked, then subsequently fired everyone and gone with a regressive GM who thinks advanced stats are useless.

Sticking with the process and being patient were never hallmarks of the Toronto Maple Leafs and so there is some irony in the fact that the best move the team ever made was not making a move.

Kyle Dubas, whose brilliance has been the main factor in getting the team to where it is now, has been fully vindicated and I wonder if he has time to do anything else today besides read apology letters.

The Toronto Maple Leafs lead the NHL in wins, regulation wins, ROW. They are a relentless team that just keeps coming at you – two first lines, and two third lines, essentially, as well as 7 x top four defenseman and the best goalie in the world.

It’s a combo that has proven recently to be unbeatable.   And Auston Matthews is just heating up. Mitch Marner isn’t producing as much as he can.

I don’t even really have a point today. The Leafs are awesome.  Enjoy it.