Toronto Maple Leafs Keep Putting Up Points Despite Adversity

The Toronto Maple Leafs continue to be competitive in difficult circumstances.

On a back-to-back, Erik Kallgren and the Toronto Maple Leafs found a way to win on Saturday night. Down 2 to nothing with the same goalie in net as the night before, they shouldn’t have had a chance. They battled back and showed the Vancouver Canucks that they were the better team, even though it was a tough situation for them.

When you look at the Leafs season so far, it’s easy to get hung up on the fact that they’re only 8-5-3 after 16 games played. However, they are still second in the Atlantic Division and are only one of two teams to beat the NHL leading Boston Bruins.

The season (for whatever reason) feels disappointing, when it really shouldn’t.

They’ve yet to get blown-out in any game thus far and have three overtime losses already. They could easily be 11-3-0 if a bounce went their way 3-on-3.

Toronto Maple Leafs Are Actually Overperforming Right Now

For half the season already, the Leafs have been without Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov. Not only that, but Jake Muzzin and Timothy Liljegren have missed a bunch of time and now TJ Brodie looks like he will too.

With a third-string goalie and one-third of their starting defense out, they’ve continued to win.

Not only have they won, but as previously mentioned, even when they’ve lost it’s been competitive. There hasn’t been a single game this year where they were out of it. Maybe the Vegas Golden Knights game on the road, but it was 1-1 in the second period and they only lost 3-1.

Usually, even the best teams, get blown out 5-0 once a month, but the Leafs haven’t had that happen yet and they deserve a lot of credit.

We all know that nothing matters until the playoffs, so it would be easy to coast and wait until April, however Toronto seems motivated. After going on that west coast slump, they’ve turned a corner and the group is finding ways to win.

With Brodie expected to miss two weeks and Muzzin out, probably for the year, their defense is going to have to step-up. Murray is going to return any day now, but I wouldn’t put much stock into that.

I’d love to criticize this team and say that they’re doomed but after 16 games, they’re in a great spot.

Although the injuries are troubling, it hasn’t stopped them yet and hopefully that will continue without another great effort against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night.