The Toronto Maple Leafs entered the NHL Christmas break on a modest two-game losing streak.
The Maple Leafs lost to the Winnipeg Jets 5-2 on the Monday before Christmas, and 6-3 to the New York Islanders the previous Saturday.
These were terrible games in which the Leafs fully deserved to lose, and is somewhat concerning considering that it has now been three bad games in a row against teams who are not the Buffalo Sabrers.
If you don't count the other games they played recently against the garbage teams like the Ducks, Sabres and Wings, the Leafs have been horrible in five of their last six games againt real NHL teams.
This entire season has seen the Leafs bad play covered over by insane goaltending, but it appears that things may be starting to catch up to them. I hope not, but we'll see. For now, let's check in on the standings.
Could the Toronto Maple Leafs Actually Miss the Playoffs?
The Leafs entered the break two points or a half-game back or the Florida Panthers, who have almost the same record, but won the extra game they've played.
The Leafs record is 21-12-2, with a points-percentage of .629, which is good for 10th best in the NHL, and not as high as you'd like to see a team that spent the majority of the first half of the season leading the NHL in goaltending.
The Leafs are a pedestrian 5-5 in their last ten, their best goalie and best player are both injured, and their incompetent lack of NHL centre-ice options is starting to become really noticable.
The Leafs are actually only two points ahead of Boston, who were left for dead earlier this season when they fired their coach. Tampa is four points back with three games in hand.
Using baseball standings, which I find a lot more usefull for picturing how close teams are to each other, Leafs are only 2.5 games up on the Ottawa Senators.
The Leafs are 5th in PDO and 4th in 5v5 Save-Percentage, which indicates that they've been very lucky so far this season. Unfortunately, they didn't build themselves a very big lead while getting this lucky, and in fact their recent 5-5 run has given back much of their gains.
The Leafs rank 18th by 5v5 Expected Goals Percentage, which means that their overall play outside of their goaltending has not been playoff worthy. Teams who are ranking higher in the standings than their Expected Goals Percentage tend to drop as time goes on, not rise.
Of course, a healthy Auston Matthews could make all the difference, but until he's ready to be an MVP, the Leafs are a team that doesn't score a ton 5v5, can't play on the road, have a terrible blue-line and no centre-depth.
Could the Leafs miss the playoffs? It seems strange to ask that about a team that could have entered the Christmas Break leading the Eastern Conference if they had of won their last two games, but the Salary Cap causes parity, and there just isn't that much room between where the Leafs are and 9th place in the conference.
The Leafs playoff odds are close to 100% right now because even if they get passed by all the Atlantic teams, the Rangers and Penguins are still pretty far off, but if the Leafs were to lose their next three games, we might have to start having this conversation for real.