Okay, the last time the Maple Leafs played the Jets, it became abundantly clear that the Jets are, in fact, horrifyingly bad, and really shouldn’t be. Yes, they have had horrible injury problems on defence, and yet the Leafs have played Justin Holl, Martin Marincin or Cody Ceci in their top four all year. Their top two actually good defenders are notorious for not being able to defend. I don’t think I feel sorry for the Jets.
This is Natural Stat Trick’s game preview showing the last 10 games of cumulative Corsi for Toronto and Winnipeg. The Jets are the lower line. That’s really bad. That’s Detroit-level bad.
Here’s the tricky part though. The last game, which was on January 2, the Leafs beat the Jets 6-2 but had a dead even Expected Goals. The Leafs did not outshoot the Corsi-challenged Jets, and they did essentially get away with one by having their big guns fire non-stop while Connor Helleybuyck had a rare bad night.
Let’s not count on a second one! Let’s try some defence, Leafs. Once in a while. Maybe even for two of the three periods, what do you say?
Go Leafs Go! (And if you have to, score six again.)
What is a safe number of goals for the Leafs to shoot for?
| At least 2 | 0 |
| Better make it 3 | 0 |
| 4 is the only safe number | 18 |
| For other teams, sure, for the Leafs, it’s 5 | 20 |
| Six and even then I’ll be nervous | 10 |
| They should still be trying for a goal after the game is over, just to be safe | 19 |
