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Toronto Maple Leafs: Getting Close to Matching Tampa’s Legendary Run

By James Tanner

TAMPA, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 25: William Nylander #88 of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Kevin Shattenkirk #22 of the Tampa Bay Lightning fight for the puck during a game at Amalie Arena on February 25, 2020 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
TAMPA, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 25: William Nylander #88 of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Kevin Shattenkirk #22 of the Tampa Bay Lightning fight for the puck during a game at Amalie Arena on February 25, 2020 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /
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The Toronto Maple Leafs have won five in a row and 15 out of 17 games.

After beating one of the NHL’s best teams – the Colorado Avalanche – earlier this week, the Toronto Maple Leafs will take on another of the league’s top teams tonight in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Wild (16-6-1) are just two points back of the Leafs, and are one of eight teams currently rocking a points-percentage over 70%.

For some reason Ryan Hartman leads the Wild with 13 goals (the same as Auston Matthews) and somehow they’re getting it done with Cam Talbot as their main goalie, but the Wild are a fairly deep team whose status as a top team isn’t very surprising, since they finished 9th overall last season.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs the Minnesota Wild

The Wild, who should be called the North Stars and who should be utilizing those far superior North Stars uniforms, are 9-2 at home and 7-2-1 in their last ten, so this is another big test for the Leafs who have already beaten Vegas, Colorado, Tampa, New York and Boston this year.

After a cold start, Auston Matthews scored a hattrick the other night, and suddenly he has 7 5v5 goals, just four off the league lead.  The hilarious thing is that Matthews is currently scoring at a rate of 1.7 points per 60, while shooting just 10%.   Before the season is done, he’ll lead the NHL in both 5v5 and total goals, while posting a P/60 close to 3.00.

Same with Mitch Marner.

It is absolutely hilarious that the Toronto Maple Leafs are destroying the NHL while their two best players, who are two of the top five players in the entire world, are not producing even close to their normal rates.

Oh and if the season ended today, Jack Campbell would set the NHL record for highest save percentage in one season and would likely win the Vezina and get Hart Trophy votes.

Campbell will start tonight, while Mitch Marner, Ondrej Kase and Morgan Rielly are all game time decisions.

As an aside, you may or may not remember earlier this season when the Leafs were struggling, I wrote about how Tampa struggled after they got upset by Columbus in the year before winning back-to-back Cups.  They started cold, then went on a berserk run.

Next. The Regular Season Matters - A Lot. dark

The Leafs need to go 5-1 to match Tampa’s 20-3 run from that year.  Even if they don’t, it doesn’t matter, because there really is no doubt who the best team in the NHL is right now.

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