Maple Leafs have just presented their best season in the history of the franchise, winning 54 wins and 115 points. They were a strong force in the regular season, which showed that they belong to the top echelon of the league, finishing fourth in the standings.
Their reward? The two-time defender of the Stanley Cup title. Of course.
It probably doesn’t matter who plays Toronto, as the real season begins. The Leafs lost when they were tough outsiders from Washington and Boston. They lost when they collided with Boston. And they lost when they were big favorites against Columbus and Montreal. It doesn’t matter who is on the other side, because the biggest enemy of the List is themselves.
Chances don’t matter.
They are a reflection of an unreasonable model who knows nothing but how well Leafs have played in the last few regular seasons. Are the Leaves Cursed? The model does not know. Do they know how to win when it matters? The model does not know. Do Lightning have the ability to move the switch now that the playoffs are here? The model does not know.
So, as a naive child, he thinks that this time things will be different. The model is obviously not a fan of Leafs or addicted to Leafs – because a fan of Leafs would know better. Hope is what kills you and the model is currently suffocating from it.
No, this is not a typo. According to The Model, the defending champions of the Stanley Cup are significant outsiders in this series – something that even their advantage in size does not correct. If the playoffs are really a different beast and certain teams just know how to win, then that kind of probability is just amazing … right?
Each season is brand new and although we use the previous ones to inform what to expect, the last season will always have the greatest weight. And in 2022, the Leafs were a better team than the Lightning. Special teams, even strength, top-class talent, depth, whatever – the advantage goes to Toronto. Leafs’ best players got better as Lightning lost, while losing key talent in the off-season. Leafs should be favored, they finished well ahead of Lightning.
This is proven in the figures below, but so far he feels almost masochistic against this team. Lightning is a team that knows how to win and how to upgrade their games when it’s important. This is a frightening proposition from a modeling point of view, when only the statistics for the regular season are taken into account, and this is probably the difference.
Maybe this is the year for Leafs to finally break through – and only a few years ago Tampa Bay was in a similar boat. You are not a winner until you win, and this is a worthy consideration in terms of “knowing how to win”.
The sixth time is the charm, but after Tampa Bay switches the key, it’s hard to see that the difference between the two clubs is as big as the model presents it.
A key difference between Lightning and Maple Leafs that affects this difference is the attack of each team. Toronto is one of the top five teams of all. Although their generation of blows and quality chances have retreated a bit recently, this is not noticeable in the results table, as their completion lifts things up. More realistic expectations are closer to their achievements throughout the season compared to the last month of play, but anyway, this is a team in a very good position to inflict some damage this postseason.
Tampa Bay, on the other hand, is at a lower offensive level. This may seem surprising, given some of the elite players they have up front. Some of their figures for the whole season are influenced by the absences of players to start the season – especially Bryden Point and Nikita Kucherov. While they remained on the surface, the trends below the surface were more indicative of how they actually performed.
In defense, the match is close. These are two teams that are similar in terms of shots and the quality chances they allow. Toronto has been a better team in suppressing attacks lately. But without so much network stability, it doesn’t always look like that in the table, which can mitigate Toronto’s offensive advantage.
So why are Leafs such a big favorite? Let’s start from the top with what is probably the best duo in the league: Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner.
No player, skater or goalkeeper has a higher predicted GSVA than Matthews with 6.8 wins. He has such a high rating, the highest rating this model has ever given to any player, because he has played around or above this level in two consecutive seasons, doing many things that the model loves: scoring a lot of goals and influencing the game in both ends of the ice. Matthews has already scored 65 or more goals in consecutive seasons, putting his projected goal at 61.6 in 82 games. Being a real talent with 50 goals is amazing in this league, but over 60 goals is a whole new level. Being able to be counted to achieve this all the time is a very special gift and is the biggest reason Matthews is so valuable.
He is also a force at both ends of the ice. For the season, Matthews posted a staggering 64 percent of expected goals, the fourth highest score in the analysis era. Controlling the game at this level is indecent and that makes Matthews so hard to stop. When on the ice, he is strongly inclined to the offensive zone. And if he is in the offensive zone, he has a great chance to score a goal.
However, Matthews does not work alone and Marner’s presence is obviously a huge plus. It is possible that no player can reach their current heights without the other, but this is not a real concern when they have each other. The chemistry between the two is sensational with Marner’s elite ability to play, which helps Matthews reach such incredible goal-scoring heights. Both would be elitist in their own right, but this transcendent level they showed this year is proof of how much the duo excel.
Now … can they do it in the playoffs? This is the big question here, which neither of them will be able to escape until they actually do. Matthews was the best player in the league this season and Marner was not far behind – they have to show that they can be when the matches are most important or everything will be in vain.
This is something that the Lightning star players learned before their successive championships. Now their top players are facing a different kind of pressure: surpassing what they have already achieved.
Entering this series, Kucherov predicts to be the most valuable of the Tampa Bay strikers worth 4.1 wins. This time he has a regular season under his belt and should not face some of the same problems he did last year, trying to get back into playing form after the post-season was already underway.
Kucherov missed some of the time earlier this season, so his result does not quite coincide with some of the best in the league. But when he counts the minutes played, he slides right into the top three in the league with 4.38 points to 60 in all situations. This is the second best in his career, only after the remarkable 2018-19 season of 128 points. He is a weapon in the power game with his shooting accuracy and mean good movement with puck to set up people like Stephen Stamkos with a royal pass. This is true at five on five, where he has one of the most positive influences on the team’s attack. Few can generate strokes outside the cycle like Kucherov. The zone of weakness, however, is his play in his own zone. And against a team with as much firepower as Maple Leafs, it could easily burn them out if coach John Cooper chooses a power-to-power match.
Another threat to a goal in this top line is Stamkos, who reached the 100-point mark for the first time in his career with 42 goals and 64 assists. He finished the regular season with a hat-trick over the islanders, which extended his streak from points to 11 games by 26 points. The lightning obviously hopes to enter a post-season series similar to last year, where he had 18 points in 23 games.
The Lightning won 61 percent of the goals with Stamkos on the ice this year thanks to its offensive result and 53 percent of the expected goals. Stamkos can challenge defenders with his deadly blow – which could elevate Kucherov’s pass – or he can set up his teammates. This makes this pair on the same line even more challenging for the defenders, as it is difficult to predict how the game between them will develop. Ondrej Palat is also not a striker, although not at the level of his teammates; he is a key facilitator who should not be overlooked.
Unlike Maple Leafs, there are no two elite talents on the second line. This is reserved only for Braden Point, who hasn’t even had his usual game break this season. This, of course, may change in the next few weeks – if anyone comes to the point where this is most important, it’s Point. He is the engine of this team. Lightning center is elite in transition with its explosive skating.
The reason the Point value is so low is that Lightning just wasn’t as dominant as you’d expect with it on the ice. They won just 51 percent of actual and expected goals, and his 58 points in 66 games are just 72 points away. At five to five, his 1.88 points at 60 were his lowest in five seasons – with an incredible 11.4% ice shooting rate. He just wasn’t as involved in the crime as usual.
Tampa Bay has three star strikers, but according to the Leafs model, they have five, which is equal to Colorado for the leadership in the league. Matthews and Marner are not in dispute in this regard, and few would argue against John Tavares or William Nilander, both of whom were close to players with a point in play. This second dynamic duo makes the Toronto attack such a huge threat and if the top two lines click at the same time, it will be a big problem for …
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