The Toronto Maple Leafs will be playing against the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight, and are expected to have Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies in the lineup.
The Toronto Maple Leafs might have a great (even amazing) record without Auston Matthews, but it is a complete fluke. It's nice it happened, but the underlying numbers are brutal and the Leafs are very lucky to get Matthews back before the wheels fall off.
Not only will Matthews be back, but Matthew Knies will be back too. Max Domi, Ryan Reaves, Calle Jarnkrok, David Kampf and Bobby McMann will all miss the game due to various injuries or suspensions.
With Matthews back, the Leafs should be so psyched that they cruise to victory.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Tampa Bay Lightning
The Leafs are 7-2 without Matthews, which is great. They also only have nine 5v5 goals during those nine games, which is extremely bad. The Leafs are winning, which is good, but this doesn't necessarily mean they are the contender we want them to be.
Yes, on it's own, winning without Matthews seems like it should mean that once you have him, you'll win even more. But this type of thinking ignores the random nature of single-game results in the NHL. The fact is, goalies make this game close to random, and the results you expect aren't always the results you get.
Case in point: Since Matthews was injured, the Leafs are the best team in the NHL, but wins do not correlate in any way shape or form to future wins. In statistics that do correlate to winning, due to their ability to quickly build a much larger and more reliable sample size than you get with wins, the Leafs are not doing well.
In puck possession they are 30th since Matthews went out. By shot-share they are 28th. By expected goals percentage they are 13th. In 5v5 goals, they are last.
They are first with a 95% save-percentage and that explains why they are winning despite playing like crap by every conceivable metric. It's important to understand that the Leafs record and recent results are because of unsustainably hot goaltending, and so, when Matthews return doesn't keep the good times rolling, please keep this in mind. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
As for tonight, I guess we'll wait and see. The Leafs will likely go back to Anthony Stolarz, and either way, it should be a great game.