4 Reasons Why the Toronto Maple Leafs Are In Big Trouble

The Toronto Maple Leafs entered the season as virtual locks to make the end of the season games.

Even though their offseason wasn’t great, the Toronto Maple Leafs looked good to go, outside of the small chance that every team just has a really bad season.

In addition to Morgan Rielly and Tyler Bertuzzi, the Leafs have four superstars, including two of the best players currently playing.

They should be a Cup Contender and make the playoffs because of that alone, but unfortunately that does not appear to be the case.

Even though Matthews has had a rough time since the trip to Sweden, the team played a fifth of the season with two MVP candidates, and their chances of making the playoffs, let alone competing for a cup, have gone way down since the beginning of the year.

With one game remaining, the Leafs are just six points behind first place.  Despite a terrible season thus far, they are only 11th overall.

The truth of the matter is, they are getting super fortunate with regards to results.

That could be beneficial or detrimental.

The fact that they got lucky while struggling will unquestionably play a significant role in their eventual success if they promptly identify and address their issues.

It would be a huge problem if, as almost all sports teams do, the Toronto Maple Leafs overestimate their good fortune, refuse to address issues early, and wait until things fall apart in a way that can no longer be denied, as is typical.

If you heard Brad Treliving mention Ryan Reaves this week, you probably think the Leafs will go with the latter strategy, as do I.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Are in Big Trouble for the Following Reasons: The Blue-Line. 

An obscure bit of trivia is that Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are posting MVP-type numbers when Morgan Rielly is on the ice, and they are posting vocation most exceedingly terrible numbers when he’s not. ( all details naturalstattrick.com).

This is because, with the exception of the injured Liljegren and the seemingly invincible Rielly, the rest of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ blue line is awful.

The Leafs entered the season with five out of six players being north of 30, and with next to no sort of profundity or actual presence at all.  I discussed this a great deal, yet the majority of the media was stuck on the way that they were returning a large portion of similar folks who’d been exceptionally effective before.

Timothy Liljegren is harmed long haul, which harms since he’s the main great player they have beyond Rielly.

We are witnessing the decline of McCabe, Giordano, and Brodie as they all play too high in the lineup.

The Leafs should be able to score more goals than they do, but when the blue line can’t move the puck well enough for Matthews and Marner to win, the problem may be bigger than it seems.

Fundamentally through injury or decline, the whole blue-line is collapsing.

One more thing about the blue line: the injuries are not the problem.  A sound blue-line of Rielly/Brodie McCabe/Liljegren Giordano/Klingberg still a lot of sucks.

The Leafs only have one NHL defenseman who is above average without Liljegren, which is absurd.

2. Only Montreal has fewer, with four, than regulation. The Leafs have five.  They are tied with San Jose, Seattle, and a lot of other bad teams for last place in the NHL.

Winning in guideline isn’t an assurance of future achievement, yet it certainly means that how well you’re playing.  The Leafs have won six games in overtime or a shootout, but if you get past regulation, you should probably flip a coin.

The Leafs are 11th in total points, but if they had gotten lucky in overtime, they could easily be 25th.

3. The best metric we have for predicting the near future is the Expected Goals Percentage, which ranks the Toronto Maple Leafs 20th.

The Leafs currently rank 11th overall but 20th in Expected Goals, so it is anticipated that they will rise to 20th overall in time.

It is unlikely that they will be able to maintain their current level of play as their blue line saps the skill of Matthews and Martin and their goalies play subpar.

The Leafs are additionally under half in puck-ownership, shots, objectives, scoring possibilities and hazardous scoring chances at 5v5.  That isn’t a recipe for long haul achievement.

4.  Roster Construction The Toronto Maple Leafs’ roster is a mess.

Max Domi is insufficient for the first line.  Nylander and Tavares lack the defensive ability to play Domi with them.

That leaves the third line, but you can’t play David Kampf on the third line because you can’t build a shut-down line with Max Domi on it.

Although Kampf shouldn’t be on a third line because he doesn’t score, you could at least put him on a defensive shut-down line and get by.  That is prevented by Max Domi.

So with Domi and Kampf in the same boat, you have what is going on where one of them should be an extremel