Toronto Maple Leafs Win, But Do Not Do So Convincingly

The best you could say about last night’s game is that the Toronto Maple Leafs won.

It wasn’t their best game, but the Toronto Maple Leafs scored the first three goals of the game and were able to hang on for a win.

In hockey, “score effects” are what we call the advantage that a trailing team has statistically.  This is because, generally at least, when a hockey team in the NHL has a 2 or more goal lead, they tend to play extremely passive in order to hold on to the lead.

This is probably a loser, as far as strategies go, but in the NHL, innovation is about as likely as The National teaming up with Bustah Rhymes.

This means that it’s hard to know, statistically, or from watching, if the Leafs played well last night, or if they just got lucky.

The scoring chances ended up being 47-32 in the Penguins favor, so this is probably not a game the Leafs would usually win.   However, full credit for winning only their second game all year where they weren’t obviously the best team.

No team will “deserve” more than 60% of their games, and a top team will at least flirt with a 70% winning percentage.  This means if the Leafs want to be a top team, last night’s game was a good start.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins

Keefe really mixed up the lines, and…..they won.  (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Judging a game that was 3-0 i, then 5-2 is hard enough, evaluating whether the line changes worked is basically impossible, since the stats from last night’s game are so skewed (score effects) and both lines had good results.

The coach made moves to try to get his stars going, and it got his stars going.  In that respect, he did his job.

Tavares, 400th goal.

Matthews 4 shots, two assists.

Marner, goal.

Nylander – never a problem.

Bunting, 3 points. 

Rielly on the ice for 3 goals for only 1 goal against.

And once again, Denis Malgin was a force (though he isn’t a star and didn’t need to get going, as he has been going all year so far).

If you had to make one complaint about this game, it’s how the coach scratched Nick Robertson, which is objectively stupid. If the coach is too worried about his job to play a rookie he isn’t doing his job properly.

I’d also like to register a complaint about Jordie Benn in the top four.

He played seven minutes more than Liljegren or Sandin (OK the errors look bad, but they are also all you remember) which is objectively bad coaching.

The fact that the Leafs won Benn’s minutes shouldn’t make us ignore the fact that the Penguins feasted on his bad play, outchancing the Leafs 18-12 when he was on the ice.

The Leafs played Jordie Benn almost eight minutes against Sidney Crosby.  The Penguins were at home and so obviously targeted this matchup, because it’s really stupid coaching by the Leafs and it’s almost an advantage they probably couldn’t believe.

The fact that the Penguins lost 3-1 during these minutes is astounding.  They normally wouldn’t.

The  Leafs are now 6th overall, and are now on a 5-1-2 run.

I would like to see better effort from the coach, however,.  Hockey is a weird game.  The Leafs have played better in almost every single game they’ve had this year than they did last night.  They were better against the Penguins last week when they lost.

But today’s narrative will be: Keefe gets his stars going, Leafs beat another top team, on a great run. Things looking up.