NOT THAT EMBARRASSING

Sammy Brezovsky

The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost in the first round (counting play-in) for 6 straight years. In 5 of those years, they lost in the sudden death game. Because of this; fans, players, and myself alike have felt embarrassment and doubt for the buds.

I’m here to tell you why it’s not as embarrassing as one might think.

Now don’t get me wrong, it is pitiful that this team can’t get out of the first round. That being said, they’ve generally been playing absolute dynamite competition on the other side of the ice.

The biggest problem for the Leafs has without a doubt been the last line of defense: the goaltender.

In 4/6 years the opposing goalie has outperformed the Leafs. In fact, the median save percentage of opposing goalies has been .927. For context, if this was the statistics for one goalie, they’d be in the top 20% of any goalie to ever play in the playoffs and would sit themself at 7th on the all time leaderboard for save percentage throughout a playoff year.

This isn’t surprising, given the fact that Toronto has seen the likes of 4 future hall of fame goaltenders in Holtby, Rask, Price and Vasilevsky. The only goaltending tandem they’ve lined-up against that won’t make the HOF is the duo of Elvis Merzlikins and Jonas Korpisalo, who in the series, carried a save percentage of .952, which would land them in the top 5 highest in one playoff and would blow any career record out of the water.

But at the end of the day, it’s not the first 6 games that matter. It’s the 7th. (or 5th, but for conceptuality let’s pretend it was 7). And in those 7 games the opposing goalies have played absolutely phenomenal. In the final, series deciding game, they had a median average of .968, which would also be reflected as the best save percentage over one playoff in NHL history.

Time and time again, goalies go off on the Leafs, putting up career numbers in the process. Of course, this level of goaltending is unsustainable, most of these records mentioned wouldn’t and didn’t occur, and that’s precisely my point.

Goalies obviously don’t make up the entire team. As I previously mentioned, four out of the six goalies the Leafs played performed better as a whole than the netminder in Toronto. This obviously means that 2 of the goalies played worse, yet the result remained the same.

The two teams “carrying” these goalies? The 2021 Montreal Canadians and the 2022 Tampa Bay Lightning. Both of those teams made the finals. Both of these teams beat the presidents trophy winning teams in less games than it took to take down the Leafs, with Tampa even sweeping Florida.

It wasn’t just these two, as the 2019 Bruins also made the finals as well. Clearly there’s a pattern that the teams the Leafs are always taken down by quality teams, no team makes the playoffs without being strong. But 3 of the teams were but a few games away of those 3 that didn’t make the finals, one was a presidents trophy winner (who won the cup the following year), and one lost to the Stanley Cup champion.

The Leafs have been forced to play Stanley Cup finalists, Dynasties, Presidents Trophy winners, and have been getting “goalied” consistently.

Of course, to be the best, you have to beat the best. Fans have a right to be embarrassed, and heartbroken, especially considering they’ve been a goal away from advancing 3 times.

But if the Leafs don’t face-off against a team on their absolute best, and a goalie putting up career numbers, you best believe this team will at the very least give them a run for their money.

And if they do play an all-time team, I guess I’ll have another example for next year.