The Toronto Maple Leafs had a great season, even though they lost in the second round and ended up firing Kyle Dubas.
The Toronto Maple Leafs finished fourth overall, and while it sucks that they ultimately lost to the 18th ranked team who made the playoffs when Pittsburgh somehow lost to Chicago 5-2 on April 11th.
The Penguins needed three out of four points in their last two games to beat Florida and they couldn’t do it. Most likely this leads to the Leafs playing Boston in the second round, and despite how good they are, they most likely wouldn’t have had a goalie as hot as Sergei Bobrovsky.
Additionally, the Blackhawks wouldn’t have won Connor Bedard, the Penguins would still have the distinction of longest active playoff streak, and someone else would be playing the Golden Knights right now. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).
It’s crazy how so much can come down to one game, but that’s the fun of sports.
The Leafs shouldn’t be too upset about losing, as there is a random nature to hockey that most people ignore when they talk about the results.
Toronto Maple Leafs Played Great, Deserve No Criticism for Florida Loss
There is no disputing that the Leafs have a better roster than both Florida and Las Vegas.
While both teams are solid Cup Contenders (the Panthers 8th place finish isn’t really indicative of their true status as they had an unlucky season and were the best team in the NHL just last year) the Leafs have more stars, better stars, and more depth.
A lot of made of play style, and if I’ve heard people talk about the Leafs needing to be tougher and rougher in order to win once, I’ve heard it a million times.
This just doesn’t make any sense. The Leafs had Ryan O’Reilly on their third line. They had a ton of depth, grinders, and players who “play the game the right way” they just ran into a hot goalie.
In the 5 games against Florida, the Toronto Maple Leafs a 54% Expected Goals Rating, while Florida had a 46% rating (5v5).
Including power-plays, the Leafs shot under 6% and Bobrovsky’s save percentage was a flat-out ridiculous 94.25%. For perspective, only 1 goalie, once, has ever had a save percentage higher than that in a season.
The Bruins set an NHL record this year for points in a season with bizarre goaltending, and neither of their goalies were quite that good.
If you look at every minute of the entire five game series the Leafs had the puck more, they had more shots (+20), they had more scoring chances(+8) and they had more dangerous scoring chances (14) but still lost four out of five games.
Four of those games were by one goal.
As far as I am concerned, the way the Leafs lost lets the off the hook 100%. They out played Florida overall, and they gave themselves a chance to win every game.
It’s kind of funny how all the previous years of the Leafs failure to win informs people’s perceptions of this loss. It’s like people are just so fed up with the results they don’t care anymore why they happened.
Which is a shame, because this Leafs roster was superb, and they lost to a worse team that got lucky. Now both teams in the Final are worse than the Leafs by any standard of measurement, and yet the team already has a new GM and will probably be ripped apart.