Even though Auston Matthews is currently tied with Martin Necas for 50th in NHL goal scoring, the Toronto Maple Leafs are mounting one of the quietest runs this town has ever seen.
Perhaps it’s because we already know that the Toronto Maple Leafs are a proven regular season winner, but for a team that has picked up points in nine of their last ten games, and considering what team we are talking about, things seam suspiciously quiet.
The Leafs laid a solid beating on the hapless Sabres last night and Mitch Marner continued his quiet climb up the NHL leader board with his 17th point during his current 12 game point streak.
Matt Murray looked great.
David Kampf continues to lead Auston Matthews in 5v5 goals, who, based on ice time, is ranked 10th on the Leafs this season so far in 5v5 goals.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Buffalo Sabres
One thing about this game I liked was how Keefe got Timothy Liljegren in the action a lot more. He is the Leafs all-round best defenseman, and is really just getting up to speed, playing in just eight games so far this year after returning from an off season injury.
Lliljegren played 18 minutes, and posted a 72% expected goals rating, while he and Sandin had their best game of the season together. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
Keefe interestingly deployed Holl with Rielly, which was just as bad as deploying him with Benn. Both combos got absolutely dusted, and the Leafs dominated pretty much every single other minute of the game.
The most interesting part of the game was the Marner drop pass that was scored onto a net that was off its moorings, but if you’re reading this, you saw that.
Tavares scored again, and is approaching a quarter season at a solid 40 goal pace. Nylander also scored his tenth, and Matthews is third on the team with 8 goals so far.
The Leafs are tied for fourth in the NHL right now (tenth by points-percentage) and are eventually going to add a goal per game from Auston Matthews. The Leafs 5v5 scoring has been suppressed by luck, and they sit 26th in 5v5 shooting percentage at the moment.
Given the talent on their team, you can assume they are due for some positive regression, which will result in them eventually catching a surpassing Boston and Las Vegas.
It’s true that you can’t count on the Leafs maintaining their ranking of 4th best 5v5 goaltending in the NHL, but it is more likely to stay strong than their offense is to stay weak. That is because goalies are random, so who knows what can happen? Auston Matthews is going to score more, that isn’t really up in the air.
There are no guarantees, I’m just saying the probability is in the Leafs’ here.