The Toronto Maple Leafs got hit with the injury bug on Saturday night, but it shouldn’t be a cause for concern, yet.
When Ryan O’Reilly got injured in the Toronto Maple Leafs game against the Vancouver Canucks this weekend, everyone pointed out that this franchise is cursed. They immediately yelled on Twitter saying that O’Reilly is the second-coming of Nick Folgino.
I know we live in a world where we want immediate results and that the world is always ending, but people need to relax about the Foligno comparison.
Foligno suffered a grueling back injury during his time in Toronto, which forced him out of action, and when he did play, made him look like a corpse on skates. That type of injury is nothing compared to what happened to O’Reilly on Saturday.
Although all signs are pointing towards O’Reilly being out long-term, he’s dealing with a finger issue, which is nothing like a back injury. Holding the stick will be uncomfortable for him, but if this happened during a playoff-game, he wouldn’t miss a shift.
O’Reilly would find a way to play through the injury and still be productive because that’s the type of player that he is. Foligno is also a fierce competitor but have you ever dealt with a terrible back injury? It debilitates your entire body and makes it extremely painful to even walk, so this O’Reilly is nothing compared to Foligno.
Toronto Maple Leafs Are Not a Cursed Franchise
Say what you want about the Toronto Maple Leafs, but they’re not cursed. I don’t care what Boston Red Sox or Chicago Cubs fans tell you, but there are no such thing are curses in professional sports.
It’s really hard to win a professional sports championship and you have to get very lucky, especially in hockey.
Hockey is a weird sport that you can have the best team, but one bad bounce can lead to a game-winning goal and a series loss. This isn’t the case in every other sport.
If you have the best quarterback in football, best scorer in basketball or best pitcher in baseball, you’re probably going to win. The same can be said about goaltenders in hockey, however it’s not as true as the other three sports.
Since 1967, the Leafs have rarely had the best goaltender in a series, so that’s been a huge reason why they haven’t been successful, especially lately. Why do you think the Tampa Bay Lightning have been so successful? Their team is constructed almost the same as Toronto’s, but they have Andrei Vasilevskiy in-net, who’s the best goalie in the world, so that’s why they keep winning.
Instead of looking at curses, the Leafs will once again have to look at their goaltending when the playoffs start. If Matt Murray can turn back the clock and be the player he was with the Pittsburgh Penguins, then this team may actually win something for once.
However, if the team is having a hard time figuring out if they should start Murray or Ilya Samsonov in the spring, then you can just kiss another series goodbye.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are not cursed. Instead, they just haven’t given themselves the best opportunity to win by having an elite goaltender, so it’s different.