If You’re Confused, Here’s Why the Toronto Maple Leafs Didn’t Fire Anyone

The Toronto Maple Leafs drafted Auston Matthews six seasons ago, and besides failing to get out of the first round, things have gone pretty well since.

Realistically, no one expected that the Toronto Maple Leafs were going to instantly win a Stanley Cup, but the expectation was that of continued growth as they worked towards one.

To my mind, the Leafs have met those expectations by becoming one of the best teams in hockey, and improving year-over-year.

It’s tough to stay positive when the team gets the same result every time, but anyone capable of separating their emotions from their analysis should be satisfied with the team and it’s direction.(stats naturalstatrick.com).

Toronto Maple Leafs Have Earned Respect and Admiration

In the past, the Leafs have operated with a fake sort of accountability which is completely detrimental to winning.  Despite being an objectively stupid, extremely short-sighted way of doing business, the Leafs (for the entirety of the 50 years preceding the hiring of Brendan Shanahan) fired people and changed directions whenever things got didn’t go as planned.

The key to success in whatever you do, in so much as you are able to counter the forces of luck, is to pay attention to the process of what you do, while understanding that the actual results will vary.

Bailing on something that is working , just because you don’t get the results you wanted, is an error most people will make.  Exceptional people will not make these errors.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have ample proof that what they are doing is working:

• They finished 4th overall last season.
• They did that while finishing 27th in goaltending.  Mathematically, because skater’s performance is repeatable, and goalie performance much more random, the wider the gap between where a team finishes in the standings and what their ranking in 5v5 save-percentage is, the higher the probability for future success.
• The Leafs have a .679 points-percentage under Sheldon Keefe, and are the 4th best team, only 11 points out of first, since he took over, 173 games ago.
• 173 games of being (more or less) the best team in hockey is a pretty good indication that you are  (more or less) among the best teams in hockey.  Even though people care about playoff success more, this much larger sample size tells us way more about the Leafs than the seven arbitrarily more important games they play once a year do.
• In their last 19 playoff games, they were the better team (by expected goals) in 15 games.
• To be the better team 79% of the time across three different series, and lose every one of them is incredibly unlucky and nothing more.  The probability of this happening was so low that it’s not even worth being upset over.
• All three of their last playoff losses can be put on their inability to score.  However, scoring is their #1 strength, and they played in such a way that they would usually have scored, so it’s hardly worth tearing down the team because they happened to run into a string of ridiculous goaltending, of which they have no control.
• The Leafs PDO for the last three years in the playoffs is under .100 meaning they were mathematically unlucky.
• The Leafs are ranked 31st out of 31 teams by 5v5 shooting percentage over the last three seasons.  In other words, the combined goalies of Columbus, Montreal and Tampa have stopped 94.37% of all shots the Leafs have taken at 5v5 during the last three playoff series.
• For perspective on just how ridiculous that number is, only one goalie, Jacque Plante, has ever finished a season with a save percentage higher than .940 which means the Leafs faced the equivalent of the best goaltending of all-time in their last 19 playoff games.
• The Leafs 2.42 Expected Goals per minute for the last three playoffs is only slightly off their regular season total of 2.6, and would still be a top-ten in the NHL ranking over that time, which proves that they aren’t being shutdown by defenses and are just getting unlucky with the goalies they face.

So if you’re wondering why the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t fire anyone when they lost three straight times in the playoffs (under their current coach and GM) that is why.  Taken as a whole, no sane person could fault the process.

The Leafs are right to stay the course, and the fact that they are bravely standing up to the vast majority of their fans and peers and ignoring their well meaning but ignorant advice is something to respect and admire.