The Toronto Maple Leafs have been one of the best teams in the NHL for years now.
In fact, the Toronto Maple Leafs are probably going through their longest streak of being competitive in the history of their franchise.
They about to make the playoffs for a seventh straight season, but unfortunately, their bad luck in the first round has obscured their overall team success.
This has, without a doubt, been the best time to be ever be a Leafs fans, and the best is yet to come.
While all this is probably well known to anyone reading this, there is one thing beside team success that has not gotten the due it deserves: the individual success of Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews.
Toronto Maple Leafs Players Robbed by Bad Luck
Marner and Matthews are likely the second and third best players alive after Connor McDavid, and both do more to help their team in non-power-play situations than he does, so it’s at least arguable that they are indeed better.
One thing no one talks about is the fact that if not for injury, Mitch Marner would be going for his 5th straight 90 point season and his fourth straight 100 point season.
Auston. Matthews would be about to secure his sixth straight 50 goals season.
In 2018-19 Mitch Marner finished with 94 points. If not for injuries and covid, this would be his 5th straight 90 point season.
That is impressive, but in those four seasons he only played 59, 55, 52, 75 games in each of the years. Had he played a full 82 games per year, he would have most likely hit 100 points in each of those seasons.
Here is a list of players who have done that before: Gretzky, Bossy, Lafleur, Lemieux, Yzerman, Orr, Stastny, Howerchuck, Kurri, Dionne, Phil Espisito, Brett Hull and Brian Trottier – quite literally a list of the best players of all time.
McDavid and Draisaitl should also be on this list.
As for Auston Matthews, Covid and injuries prevented him from scoring six straight 50 goal seasons. He should be on a list with Mike Bossy, Wayne Gretzky and Guy Lafleur. That’s it.
So next time someone is trashing the Toronto Maple Leafs, you can point out that their two best players are in fact two of the very best players to ever live, and that only injuries and Covid prevented them from performing two of the greatest individual accomplishments in the history of the NHL.