Top 11 Reasons This Year Is Different for the Toronto Maple Leafs
The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost in the playoffs, or failed to even make them, for 55 straight years.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are an embarrassment. There is no way around the fact that despite being the NHL’s oldest and richest franchise, they have not won a single championship since the league expanded beyond six teams.
Now I may never have met a math class that I couldn’t sneak a novel into, but the odds of winning by accident are probably better than trying and failing 55 straight times.
Consider also that they didn’t just fail to win a Stanley Cup, they also never had a player lead the league in scoring or win a major award – no Leafs player has won the Norris, the Hart or the Vezina in this time.
As bad as the Leafs were before Brendan Shanahan got here, what has happened since has been what myself and thousands of other fans have always wanted: bottom out completely, get a great player, then build a contender through the draft.
The ride hasn’t always been smooth, but Shanahan, Kyle Dubas, and Mark Hunter accomplished the first part of this process perfectly – they bottomed out and drafted Auston Matthews in their first intentionally bad season. You can ask Buffalo, Arizona or Ottawa how often this actually works out. The Leafs got very lucky because they were able to rebuild way faster than they should have been able to, by bringing in Mitch Marner and Matthews back-to-back.
I really do think the expectations on this team have been unfair. As much as it did suck to watch them lose five straight playoff series, at least the first three should be written off as them being underdogs gaining much needed experience. It is only retroactively that those seasons are seen as failures.
The last two were definitionally failures, but at least one of them was just a random five game series played in August, and it really shouldn’t count against them anyways.
If you want to be mad, be mad, far be it for me to tell you how to feel. But I am optimistic that this team will finally break through, so I present to you the following ten reasons why I think the time is nigh.
Nigh, I say……
#11. Jack Campbell
The goalie who had the highest save percentage from January 1st 2021 to December 31st 2021, an entire calendar year that spans one entire season, and 40% of this current one, was none other than Jack Campbell.
Campbell was also the NHL’s best goalie when it comes to goals-for percentage – and it is my belief that if you could pick anyone to be your goalie for the playoffs in 2022, the best goalie of 2021 would be a pretty good choice.
That is why I believe in Jack Campbell. That is why I wrote, prior to the trade deadline, that the Leafs should not trade for a new goalie.
Sure, Campbell has struggled since December, but his recent injury coincides with his downturn in performance.
There are even odds that even if the Leafs went all-in for a star goalie, that that goalie would come in and struggle. There is just no rhyme or reason to the goalie position, and established superstars often go on terribly cold runs, while no-name goalies are known to carry their teams to random championships.
Since you can’t know, and since you do have the guy who was most recently the best goalie in the world for almost 1.5 seasons, it’s not really a hard decision.
Jack Campbell got the Toronto Maple Leafs to where they are, he was great in last year’s playoffs, and more than that, he’s just an awesome guy.
Replacing Campbell with a mercenary would rip the hart right out of this team.
I personally would rather lose with Jack Campbell than win with anyone else. In a world of garbage, selfish athletes, the guy is a true gem. As a goalie or a human, he is awesome. The Toronto Maple Leafs made the right call and Jack Campbell is going to lead them to glory.
#10. The Toronto Maple Leafs Are Due
Just how many more series do you expect to ever see where Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews and John Tavares combine for one goal?
I would say none.
In the Toronto Maple Leafs last two series, their offense completely deserted them. Against Columbus, they set an NHL record for lowest shooting percentage in a five or more game series. They shot under 2%. We know, thanks to almost two decades of hockey analytics, that shooting percentage is not closely linked to performance, and that any long-term run of low shooting is just bad luck.
It wasn’t even much better against Montreal – the offense went dry.
It won’t happen again. The Leafs have been the better team by expected goals in 11 straight playoff games. The odds of losing two series while doing that are extremely low, and therefore I figure they’re due for some luck.
The Leafs have outperformed their shoddy goaltending all season long, while also scoring less than the numbers say they should. Eventually this will self-correct and they’ll go on a shooting percentage bender where they are nearly unbeatable.
This might not happen in the playoffs, but whatever, the Leafs are due for a little luck and so they might as well get it this year in the playoffs.
A little more tangible is this: it’s better to have lost because you didn’t do what you usually do, than it is to just be outclassed. The Leafs have lost because what they are usually so good at – scoring – didn’t happen. It’s easier to improve on something you’re already good at, so expect the Leafs to finally score in this year’s playoffs and subsequently, to win.
#9. Special Teams
Last year, the Toronto Maple Leafs won their division despite essentially not having a power-play for the last half of the season. (Special teams stats from slindenberg.com)
For reasons that are inexplicable, beyond just bad luck, the Leafs power-play was cruising along as the best in hockey when it suddenly became impossible for the team to score with the man advantage.
They switched up the special teams coaches, and this year has been a return to the top.
To date, the Leafs have scored at nearly a 30% clip on the power-play, far and away ahead of everyone else in the NHL. Their penalty kill has almost been as good, ranked 4th overall, but scoring so much shorthanded that they’re essentially the best PK team as well.
The Leafs have the best combined special teams in hockey, and only Carolina is even close to them.
The Leafs have allowed just 3 short handed goals, and only one team has allowed less. The Leafs lead the league with 11 shorties for themselves, thanks to the duel PK powers of Marner and Mikheyev.
With the best special teams in the NHL, the Leafs will have a major advantage over whoever they end up playing. The power-play is lethal and the PK is almost as good. They entered last year’s playoffs with a big question mark in this category, so even if you ignore all nine of these other reasons, the special teams should make you at least slightly more confident than usual.
#8. The Toronto Maple Leafs are Just Really Good
A good reason to believe that this year will be different than last year is that the team is better.
Not only is Mark Giordano here, but Auston Matthews isn’t battling a wrist injury that prevents him from shooting. That alone makes the Leafs better than they were.
There is the aforementioned special teams prowess.
They are 6th in Corsi-For.
They are 4th in Expected Goals percentage, and have achieved their current position while scoring less goals than they deserve. Eventually this will balance out, and the regression will favor the Leafs.
People keep questioning the Leafs defense, but they are actually ranked 8th in 5v5 expected goals against, which means that when their goalie isn’t blowing it, they are actually a way above average defensive team.
Currently the Leafs are sixth overall by points percentage, and yet by PDO (a measure of luck) they rank 17th. Any time your results are outperforming your PDO you are highly probable to perform well in the future.
But the biggest reason to believe in the Leafs is how well they’ve done despite getting the 28th best 5v5 goaltending in the NHL. A healthy Jack Campbell is guaranteed to be better than the 28th best goalie, and if the Leafs had even average goaltending for most of this year they’d be in first place by a significant margin.
The goalie is bound to be better and therefore so are the Leafs.
#7. The Leafs Are Relentless
The fact that the Leafs continued to produce high danger scoring chances even when they weren’t scoring vs Columbus and Montreal means that those teams did not shut the Leafs down. It means those teams just got insane goaltending.
The Leafs have Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander.
Then Michael Bunting has Hart Trophy-worthy 5v5 numbers.
Mikheyev gets like 5 shots per game.
Pierre Engvall is scoring at a surprisingly high clip.
Ondrej Kase, Alex Kerfoot, even Spezza and Simmonds….the Leafs have a ridiculous amount of offensive weapons, and the playoff failures have hidden them in plain site.
Sure, maybe some teams think the Leafs aren’t tough enough to succeed in the playoffs, but if they get hot offensively, they will be unstoppable.
It might not have worked yet, but eventually there will come a time when a team is facing the Leafs and they realize that Toronto just constantly attacks, with every line, relentlessly.
In their last 11 playoff games, they’ve come from down two or more goals three times to force overtime. They did that when their offence was ice cold. I’d like to see what they could do when they’re hot, or even just warm. The ability to come from behind also shows great resilience, character, leadership and determination.
Something to consider: If the Leafs had won a game where they outshot their opponent 12-1 in overtime, they would currently be winners of at least one playoff series, and they’d have a reputation as a great come-from-behind team.
#6. Defensive Depth
The Toronto Maple Leafs are not known for their great defense, but their current group features eight defenseman any one of which are good enough to play in the top four of any team in the league.
The first couple of seasons of the Matthews Era featured a much riskier, more free-wheeling team than what you get today.
Today’s Leafs team is a precise, possession heavy juggernaut that loves to cycle and rarely get rush chances. They pay attention to defense and while they are not completely risk-adverse, they play much differently in practice than you’d think based on their reputation.
As I said above, they are 8th best in the NHL in Expected Goals Against per 60 minutes of 5v5 ice time. Add in the fact that they are currently the 4th best penalty killing team in hockey, and their reputation as a bad defensive team is rendered nonsensical.
The Leafs have had bad goaltending and it has had nothing to do with their defense. The Leafs rank 10th overall in high-danger scoring chances allowed per minute. That’s not to shabby.
They owe their success to a great blueline, which, when healthy, is eight deep in solid NHL Players.
As recently as last year, Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin and TJ Brodie were all elite players. Mark Giordano so far has put up #1 defenseman numbers. Justin Holl’s numbers are way better than people think, while Timothy Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin have been two of the best statistical defenseman in the NHL this year.
Liljegren specifically has been the Leafs best defenseman based on just the on-ice results at 5v5 (and he has great PK Numbers too).
Then there is the new guy, Ilya Lyubushkin who has already shown he’s worth of dressing regularly, and has even done well at the top of the lineup.
The Leafs blue-line is talented, and it’s deep. If they start the playoffs healthy they’ll be benching two top-four worthy defenseman. That’s depth.
#5. Sheldon Keefe
The ultimate players’ coach is Sheldon Keefe. He’s honest, and fair, and his players love him.
He is also a very strong tactician who has proven to be among the NHL’s coaching elite. Since being hired in 2019, Sheldon Keefe has put together one of the best records in history.
Of NHL coaches with at least 100 NHL games behind the bench, Sheldon Keefe has the second highest winning percentage of all time.
In parts of three seasons as the Leafs coach, he has a .670 points-percentage, which is basically President’s Trophy Level.
In the playoffs, the Leafs may have lost, but Keefe’s coaching allowed them to post 11 straight games with a positive expected-goals rating. It is not Keefe’s fault that his all-time great offense went ice-cold in two consecutive series.
You can’t blame Keefe for Columbus setting a playoff series save percentage record.
You can’t blame Keefe for Tavares, Matthews and Marner combing for one goal in seven games against Montreal.
It’s not Keefe’s fault that Matthews couldn’t shoot the puck, that Tavares got kicked in the head, that Foligno could hardly walk, or that Hyman was down to just one leg.
And it sure isn’t his fault that his team made an NHL record two-straight multi goal comebacks to force OT and didn’t win either. You can’t blame him that a knuckle-puck beat his goalie from 80 feet out, after his team just outshot them 12-1 in overtime.
In fact, the single worst hockey take I have ever heard is that Keefe was somehow “outcoached” in the playoffs. That’s only true if you believe there is no need for analysis that that the final score tells you everything you need to know.
Keefe is a strength for the Leafs and having him behind the bench will help them advance.
#4. Consistency
The Toronto Maple Leafs have consistently been at the top of the NHL under Sheldon Keefe.
For three seasons, since Mike Babcock was fired, they have flirted with a .700 points percentage, which is the very definition of consistent.
Matthews scores a goal per game, roughly.
The Leafs pound opposition into the ground with their relentless attack, and even when they lose games to bad teams, the stats almost always show them as the best team.
Whatever you want to say about the Leafs performance in the last two Playoffs, the fact is that it’s far more important that for 180ish games , this team has been nearly unbeatable than it is that they lost two series over 12 games where they were the better team in 11 of them.
It usually takes an incredible goalie performance for any team to beat the Leafs, and no matter how you break down the numbers, they are the very model of consistency.
#3. The Core Four
The reason the Toronto Maple Leafs are such a good team is that they understand that star players drive success in the NHL and subsequently invested in four of them.
No other team in hockey has four forwards playing at this level, and it allows their role players – Kerfoot, Engvall, Bunting et. al – to shine.
The Core Four gives Sheldon Keefe an unreal amount of options and makes it very hard to play against the Leafs.
There just isn’t another player in the NHL as good as John Tavares that opposition teams ignore, and that makes the Leafs really hard to play.
The Core Four is going to be the main reason the Toronto Maple Leafs ultimately win the Stanley Cup. The fact that the Leafs were able to withstand the pressure of doing something no one had ever done before, and which almost no one publicly supported, is a testament to their belief in following what the numbers say, even when it clashes with traditional thinking.
Putting half the salary cap into four players was a risk, but it’s clearly working out. We know that winning in the NHL playoffs has a large component of luck to it, but there is no luck that can make you a Cup Contending .670 team over three seasons and almost 200 games.
Kyle Dubas has been proven right, but it’s going to take an actual Stanley Cup for most people to admit it, and there is a pretty good chance the Leafs win it this year.
#2. Mark Giordano
When the Toronto Maple Leafs were rumored to be trading for Mark Giordano, I didn’t think they should do it. Considering the price of recent trades, and the fact that Giorddano is 37 and on the decline, and would take ice time away from Rasums Sandin and Timothy Liljegren, it just didn’t make sense.
But the Leafs acquired him dirt-cheap, and he immediately started playing like he was a #1 defenseman, so I couldn’t be happier to have been wrong.
53% Corsi
57% Shots Share
60% Expected Goals
55% of the Scoring Chances
62% of the Dangerous chances.
1.11 Points per 60 5v5
5 Points total in 11 games.
When it comes to shots-for, expected goals and scoring chances, only Timothy Liljegren has better numbers on the Toronto Maple Leafs blue-line. The Leafs coach started by easing Giordano into the lineup with a low amount of 5v5 minutes compared to Morgan Rielly, but the last four games have seen the Leafs run their three pairings a more even amount of ice time. (Instead of the 3rd pair playing 12 minutes and the top pair playing 18, its been closer to 14 and 16 minutes respectively).
This balance will help the Leafs a lot in the playoffs when other teams start to overplay their stars. The Leafs blue-line is incredible with the addition of Giordano and I would expect him to get even more ice time and responsibility as time goes on, making the Leafs even better.
If, as he has been so far, Giordano continues to play like a legitimate #1 defenseman the Leafs go from “one of hockey’s best teams” to “easily the best team.”
#1. Auston Matthews
The Toronto Maple Leafs have the best player in the NHL on their team. In the last 11 playoff games, Auston Matthews has three goals.
In his last 51 regular season games, he has 51 goals.
I would say that he is due for some playoff scoring, and I would hate to be the team that has to face Auston Matthews when he has “just” 3 goals in his last 11 games.
Mitch Marner has 18 games without a goal – he’s well overdue as well.
The Leafs are going to crush whoever they play if they get good goaltending. If the Leafs struggle in net, the series will seem much closer, but the Leafs will score their way out.
Did you see Auston Matthews just decide to win a game by himself last week in Dallas? That play alone gives me all the confidence I need for the upcoming playoffs.
This is the best player in the game having his best ever season. I guarantee you he will not disappoint in the playoffs again.
If Matthews is going and the rest of the Leafs are OK, they will win most of the time.
If Matthews is going and the Leafs get good defense, special teams and secondary scoring, who is going to beat them? No one.
Do you think a player can achieve what Matthews has in his life so far and not be able to find an extra gear when it really counts? I predict he scores eight goals in the four games against whichever unlucky team has to face him this spring.
Next. The Leafs Top 10 Prospects. dark
There are nine good reasons, listed above, why you should believe in this year’s Toronto Maple Leafs, but the only one that matters is this one. Auston Matthews is the best player, and the team with the best player has the best chance to win.