Toronto Maple Leafs Lose, But Played Great, Deserved Win

The Toronto Maple Leafs had one of their best games of the season last night.

Despite losing the game, the Toronto Maple Leafs should be extremely happy about the way they played last night.

We all know that hockey is a game that features a lot of luck, and the Leafs just didn’t have any last night.

This is the kind of game they were due for however, so we can’t be too upset. The fact is, whenever a team goes on a crazy 15-2 run it’s because they are getting a ton of luck.  As well as the Leafs have played lately, you can’t win them all and last night proved it.

Toronto Maple Leafs Beat Tampa but Lose Anyways

The Leafs started the game on a tear and Wayne Simmonds looked to put the them up 2-0, but somehow the puck stayed out of the net. This play sums up Simmonds’ season to date in that he has played way better than his three goals indicate.  This play was crazier than most “almost goals” because there were three different points where the puck could have gone in.

Only bad luck prevented the dominating Leafs from being up 2-0.

Since this is hockey, you know what’s gonna happen: two straight Tampa goals, one which was pretty fluky.  The tendency is to blame someone on these plays, but it’s hockey.  Guys miss assignments, guys make errors.  Most of the time players don’t score from 50 feet out.

The Leafs tied it before the end of the period, but then Tampa scored twice quickly in the second and that was pretty much it.

Except, this Leafs team never quits because they’re animals.  They almost pulled off a great comeback against one of the NHL’s best teams. (naturalstattrick.com).

So here is what I like:  Great start, dominating stats, didn’t give up when they could easily have.

Here is what I didn’t like: Nothing. The Leafs win this game 9 times out of ten, so who cares?

If the Toronto Maple Leafs play like this all the time they will simply be the best team in the NHL.

They got 60% of the shot-attempts, 60% of the shots, 64% of the scoring chances, 65% of the high-danger scoring chances, and 64% expected goals.  The Leafs had an absolute ton of in-tight chances.

Vasilevkiy was better than Campbell, and Tampa got all the luck.   This game can be summed up by Auston Matthews.  He was his amazing, dominant self.  He only attempted four shots, which is low for him, but when he was on the ice, the Leafs destroyed Tampa to the tune of an almost 70% expected goals rating, but were outscored 1-0.

Again, who cares about the results? It would have been nice to see a victory, but the Leafs have won a lot of games this year where they played worse than they did last night. That’s hockey.