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Toronto Maple Leafs Look to Kick Off 2023 With Milestones

By James Tanner |
TORONTO, CANADA - NOVEMBER 30: Mitchell Marner #16 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates with teammate Auston Matthews #34 after scoring a late goal that tied the franchise point streak record of 18 games against the San Jose Sharks during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on November 30, 2022 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Sharks 3-1. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)
TORONTO, CANADA - NOVEMBER 30: Mitchell Marner #16 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates with teammate Auston Matthews #34 after scoring a late goal that tied the franchise point streak record of 18 games against the San Jose Sharks during an NHL game at Scotiabank Arena on November 30, 2022 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Maple Leafs defeated the Sharks 3-1. (Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)

The Toronto Maple Leafs closed out 2022 with a New Year’s Eve Victory over the Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche.

The Toronto Maple Leafs won four out of five games to close out the year, which also included a resounding victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

It’s no coincidence that the Leafs beat last year’s two finalists in the week that they announced themselves as the best team in the NHL with 9 straight games with a 57% + Expected Goals Rating bookended by two thorough thrashings of top teams.

There will always be people who do not understand the random nature of the playoffs and think the Leafs need to win “when it counts” to be a top team, but to be honest, I’m getting pretty sick of some those people’s inability to understand basic math.

The Leafs don’t need to win in the playoffs to be a successful team. They are a team that has won .682% of the points available to them over the last four years.

That level of sustained success as a top team is very rare – the Leafs have never been this good, for this long.  Not in a post-expansion league.

I find it sad that we can’t recognize the greatness of this team because they happened to lose in the playoffs, which we know are a randomized feast of variance that rarely sees the best team crowned Champion.

This team has provided excellent entertainment, and it’s been a blast following them through their ups and downs.  Whether they eventually win or not, this is the best Leafs team in history, and the best one we’ll likely ever see.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs the St. Louis Blues

The Blues are a decent team on paper that hasn’t been too good this year.  Whether we look at Expected Goals Percentage, Save Percentage or Points in the Standings, the Blues rand in the early to mid-twenties out of 32 teams.

The Leafs beat them 5-4 in OT last week in a game they actually dominated. The final score of that game was generous to the Blues

Tonight’s game should be even easier, since the Blues are missing two of their best players. 

The Toronto Maple Leafs will be healthier than usual, as Conor Timmins will sit to make way for Rasmus Sandin.

Sandin is having trouble getting people to accept him as a top pairing star, but don’t forget, this is a world where the most popular movie ever made is Avatar, which is a movie so bad it would be improved by the addition of Pauly Shore to the cast.

An interesting note about tonight’s game: Matthews is one point away from 500 for his career, while Marner is 3 short. There is a lot of talk about them hitting the milestone in the same game, but I think it would be impressive if William Nylander scored 115  points tonight and all three of them hit 500 at once.

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While that would be cool, I doubt Nylander will smash the single game points record by 105 tonight, even if he is now officially the Toronto Maple Leafs 3rd Franchise Level Player.

Once again, Happy New Years!

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