The Toronto Maple Leafs are on fire.
The Toronto Maple Leafs destroyed the Boston Bruins last night, despite having to bring in Erik Kallgren to replace Petr Mrazek in the first period.
At one point, the Leafs were up 6-1, and for once you can’t blame them for blowing a lead – with a back-up goalie and two injured defenseman (Lyubushkin and Holl both had to leave the game) it would have been excusable, but the Leafs actually played well and the goals they did give up late were pretty fluky.
All in all, it was the third time in two weeks the Leafs have gone up against one of the NHL’s best teams and came out on top, beating Florida the other night and Carolina a few games back.
Last month, actually, the Leafs beat Washington, Minnesota, Pittsburgh and Carolina, so that is, in fact, seven wins in a row vs the best the NHL Has to offer.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have now won five of their last seven, and only some bad luck prevented them from winning all seven – they are currently on fire and rolling in every possible way.
Now sure, there are some injuries to worry about, but on the bright side, Jack Campbell is due back soon, and it’s unlikely that Muzzin, Holl, Lyubushkin and Sandin will all remain out for long. As for Mrazek, it sucks that he got injured again after it seemed like he was regaining his game, but that’s just how she goes sometimes. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
Toronto Maple Leafs Beat the Bruins, Easily
Auston Matthews scored, he is only 1 goal away from 50 for the first time in his career. He now has 42 goals in his last 44 games and only extreme bias against the Toronto Maple Leafs can keep him from a Hart Trophy that he is completely running away with.
Without a single ounce of hyperbole, he should win it unanimously. This is the best season any player has had in the NHL in over 20 years.
The craziest thing about Matthews is that he gets almost a full minute less of power play ice time per game than McDavid and MacKinnon, missed a couple games to start the year, then had to recover from off-season surgery, and also got suspended (ridiculously) for two games.
All that and he’s still the most valuable player in the league by WAR, and has the most goals.
Finally, since this article has been pretty celebratory, I will leave you with the absolute insane statline of Mark Giordano since he joined the Leafs:
62% Corsi, 64% Shots, 63% Scoring Chances, 83% Dangerous Chances and 77% Expected Goals.
Those are Norris Trophy numbers. Now, of course it’s only been four games, and it would be crazy to assume a 38 year old can maintain this……..but wow. So far, at least, the Toronto Maple Leafs have blown away what anyone else did at the trade deadline, and it appears they have a new #1 defenseman.