Having lost so many times with the same group in the previous playoff seasons, the Toronto Maple Leafs were afforded no quarter from the media when they lost to the Florida Panthers last year.
You can't blame the fans - anyone who keeps their faith when their favorite team loses 11 straight elimination games, as the Toronto Maple Leafs improbably did, should be nominated for sainthood.
However, all that baggage obscures one simple fact:
The Leafs were better than Florida last year and even though they lost the series, they deserved to win.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Outplayed Florida Last Year and Deserved to Win
It's too bad too, because it led to the Leafs changing GMs and team-building philosophies for the worse. Their team last year was deeper, had more stars and a way better blue-line.
But that doesn't matter too much, because this year's team is also excellent. Forget all that crap and cliched nonsense about "playoff style games" and consider this:
The supposedly "built for the playoffs" Florida Panthers had to get extremely lucky to beat the Leafs last year.
The narrative is that Florida was just too big and too strong, but that's is pure, unadulterated B.S.
If you haven't noticed by now that pro-sports narratives are shoehorned into the discussion after the fact, I can't help you. You shouldn't trust any of them and should remain vigilantly questioning of even the most obvious seeming ones.
In actual fact the Leafs were the best team in four out of fives games. You can give game one to the Panthers, but the Leafs could easily have won games two through five with just a little puck luck. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).
The fact is, the Auston Matthews Era of Toronto Maple Leafs hockey has been marked by improbable playoff results all over the place. The afformentioned 0-11 run in eliination games just being a starting point.
They have outplayed teams left and right, and found crazy, improbable, even unfair ways to lose. Columbus suddenly getting the best playoff goaltending of all-time, or Montreal winning an overtime game after being outshot 12-0 in OT on a knucklepuck from 90 feet out while an uncalled headshot left Alex Galchenyuk on laying on the ice.
I could go on. And I will.
Tampa winning game six on a refereeing error. Nazem Kadri being suspended for not one, but two game sevens.
And finally losing to Florida last year despite being the best team in four of five games.
In the series, the Leafs had 53% of the dangerous scoring chances. A team being physically outmatched shouldn't be able to do that, no?
The Leafs had the better Expected Goals Percentage in four of five games and somehow lost four of five games.
They also lost three one-goal games. In the NHL, one-goal games are essentially a coin-flip. The Leafs weren't outplayed, they weren't phsically outmatched. They were unlucky, and when it came down to it, Sergei Bobrovski outplayed Joseph Woll and Ilya Samsonov.
That's the entire story. Everything else is a lie.