Toronto Maple Leafs: Bad Results Don’t Matter When You’re Playing Well

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost a coin-flip game on Saturday, but so what?

When the Toronto Maple Leafs have to play the Boston Bruins, it is not a “test” and that game wasn’t more important than any other one, except in the ridiculous narrative machine that is the Toronto Media. 

Every time the Leafs play a good team it’s so annoying to hear people talk about it being a measuring stick or a whatever other annoying cliché they use.  Yes, it’s exciting when the two best teams go up against each other, but as was extremely clear from watching the game, neither of these teams has a significant advantage over the other.

Here in reality, the results of a salary capped professional league only matter after a significant sample size is achieved. The fact is, unless one team plays poorly, the result of such a matchup comes down to randomness.  It drives me nuts hearing people make big assumptions and pronouncements based on one game.

Especially when the Leafs last two games, against Detroit and Boston, both regulation losses, could have gone in the Leafs favor with them playing no differently.

Nothing the Leafs did caused an uncalled penalty shot that should be automatic. you can’t blame them for a phantom penalty call where there was no contact, uncalled headshots and high-sticks etc. 

Whatever, it’s not like the refs are “against” the Leafs, but rather they are humans who make mistakes, and in a completely even game, those mistakes are often the difference.

Toronto Maple Leafs Played Well and That’s All That Matters

The Toronto Maple Leafs outplayed both Detroit and Boston, and in both games there were obvious and blatant calls that went against them.  This isn’t an excuse, it’s just what happened.  The results don’t actually mater.

The fact that the team is playing well matters.  It would be nice to win a 4-point game against the only team ahead of you, but the margins between a star and a replacement player are so razor thin in a professional league that there will always be a degree of randomness in the results.

If you want to see the best team win every time, go watch Junior Hockey where the gaps between players are enormous and luck isn’t a major factor.  Ironically, the random nature of hockey is what makes the playoffs so great to watch, as any David can become a Goliath provided they grind it out and their goalie gets hot.

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost to the Bruins. Ironically, after a month and a half of winning nearly every game, the Leafs are playing like a well-oiled machine and losing frequently.  That is what happens over the course of the regular season and its 82 game marathon schedule.

The fact is that no matter what the Leafs say to the media or what the media says about the game, the team and players were extremely happy with how they played Saturday.  Making any grand pronouncements out of frustration over a random result is understandable, but preposterous.