Toronto Maple Leafs Get Extremely Lucky, Will Face Panthers Not Bruins

The Toronto Maple Leafs luck continues.

After several years of horrible playoff luck, the Toronto Maple Leafs have gotten several lucky breaks over the last few days.

Of course, the Leafs played a solid series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, but they won three overtime games that could have gone either way.

It take a lot of luck to win three straight overtime games (and if you don’t believe me, look back to the Montreal series a couple of years ago when the Leafs lost two OT games in a row where they absolutely demolished the Canadiens).

But the Leafs got a lot luckier last night when the Florida Panthers defeated the Boston Bruins in overtime of game seven.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Florida Panthers

The greatest thing about playing Florida isn’t really that they are a worse team than Boston, because they aren’t.  The greatest thing is that the Leafs get home ice advantage.  That means more games with last change, and fan support.

The history books will say that this was one of the greatest upsets in history, but Boston’s roster is not a world-beater. No one thought they would even be the top team entering the season, and while they are certainly a strong team, they were mostly just a lucky one.

They were lucky when it came to injuries, the salary cap, the goalies they used, and their shooting and save percentages.  Boston finished with a nearly 94% 5v5 save percentage.  That is preposterous.  The second best team was a full percentage point lower.

In the playoffs, regression reared its predictable head and the Bruins could only stop 91%.

Is Linus Ullmark the best goalie of all-time? Not even close. In fact, he’s highly unlikely to be the best goalie in the NHL next season.  His Cinderella Run was spectacular, but it really led to people overrating Boston.

The Panthers won the President’s Trophy last year, and then arguably improved their team this year, but were not lucky and had to scrape their way into the playoffs.

They finished the season on a 12-5-3 run, which included winning six in a row (and getting points in seven in a row) to clinch a playoff spot.  (Stats naturalstattrick.com).

They really aren’t a worse team than Boston.  In fact, there isn’t much difference between Toronto, Boston, Tampa or Florida.  They are four of the NHL’s best teams, and the Atlantic division is just bonkers right now.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will get to play Florida, but the luck is in getting home-ice.  Florida is probably a slightly easier opponent, but for psychological reasons more than actual ones.

As an added Bonus, if the Leafs get through this round, the pick they got for Sandin will turn out to be higher than the one they traded for O’Reilly.  That’s nuts – just like these playoffs so far.