The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off a few fairly terrible games.
After an extraordinary streak that saw them as the second best team in hockey – only a couple of losses to Carolina prevented them from being best team of the last 30 games – the Toronto Maple Leafs have hit a bit of a tough patch and are 2-2-1 in their last five.
Those five games include a loss against a weak Flyers squad, a coin-flip loss to Carolina in a shootout, and two highly frightening games against the Edmonton Oilers and the New Jersey Devils.
Both the Jersey and Oilers games pretty much sum up this club exactly: First, the Leafs build a five-goal lead but almost blow it. Then against the Devils they had one of the best periods it’s possible to have and then play two utterly rubbish ones.
And worst of all, the unifying denominator of all these games is that the goalies sucked, except for one game where Joseph Woll reminded us of his potential.
The Toronto Maple Leafs GM’s Worst Move Is One He Didn’t Make As we have seen throughout the last few of months – where the Leafs have been within spitting distance of being the NHL’s greatest team – this is a squad that can outscore it’s difficulties, and frankly, nothing else.
The Leafs aren’t a solid defensive club and they have a below average blue-line and some of the worst goaltending in hockey, at least among playoff teams.
And yet, the Leafs lead the NHL In 5v5 and total goals since January 18th, which is a period of approximately 30 games and almost one-third of the NHL season. During this moment they are getting almost 70% of the points available to them. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
But they are doing it while allowing a ton of goals. Their expected-goals % does not suggest they should be a top club, yet throughout this time they’ve had the 13th best XGoals rating, and the15th best goalkeeper.
There is no way a team with those numbers should be first among the elite teams in the league, but the Leafs are just outscoring everyone in their path.
But if they can do that with the 15th best goalkeeper *(its 22nd throughout the full season to date) why didn’t they realize this and go out and find a better goalie?
It makes no sense. This is a team that can be the top team in the NHL when it has league-average goaltending. Having a superior goalie would mean they could win games when the scoring goes dry.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have won 40 games this year, and just eight of those wins were when they scored 3 goals or less. It is absolutely crazy that they didn’t try harder to recruit a goaltender.
Goalies who come back from high-ankle sprains do not often return to their prior status immediately. This has been well documented since Woll went down.
Goalies that get waived should not be the starting goalies on teams who in the middle of one of the limited amount of prime seasons from a Generational Player.
