Whether or not the Toronto Maple Leafs will be playing in mid-April is totally up to them. Right now the Leafs sit in the 7th spot in the Eastern Conference with 62 points, 1 point ahead of Ottawa, 3 points ahead of Florida for 9th and Winnipeg sits 10th with 56 points. As of now it seems unlikely that there will be more than those 10 teams fighting for a playoff spot when the end of the season comes around and there are only 9 points separating 9th from 2nd, so the East, as of now, is wide open. Nevertheless, the Leafs have a very good chance of making the playoffs. With 28 games to go, the Leafs are a mere 6 points back of recently-mediocre Boston for the Northeast division lead, which would move them all the way up the standings into 2nd place.
Great hockey teams (like Detroit and Boston) win the Stanley Cup when they have a hot goalie, that's just the way it is. Good teams (like the Leafs) make the playoffs when they have a hot goalie, and good news for Leafs fans: we have two goalies that are capable of getting hot. James Reimer and Jonas Gustavsson are both B level goalies, and that is okay. As we just saw with Reimer's shutout streak, when a goalie is playing well, the Leafs win. I would not be surprised to see coach Ron Wilson use the "if you win, you play the next game but if you lose, you don't" tactic on these young goaltenders that are both fighting for ice time. If both guys are able to stay healthy and continue to play well, the Buds will make the playoffs.
All good teams need a guy who can just put the puck in the net, the Leafs have that in Phil Kessel. In a losing effort on Tuesday night, Kessel scored his team-leading 30th goal of the season, and it was beautiful. It won't make any highlight reels, but Phil is skating and getting his shots through, his quick release is killer for goalies and as he does here, when he is cutting across the middle of the ice the shot to the far side is an impossible save for the goalie as he is tracking Phil through the middle of the ice. Whether you like him or not, Kessel is our best player and it is awesome to see him finally playing like it. In his first two years with Toronto he had -8 and -20 ratings, this year he is +7. In his first two years his shooting percentages (goals per shot) were 10.1% and 9.8%, this year he is at a career high of 15.6%. If Kessel and the two goalies stay consistent, the Leafs will make the playoffs.
The Leafs are in Philly tonight and will play against an undermanned Flyers team that has lost 3 in a row for the first time since last March. Danny Briere is still out and Ilya Bryzgalov will miss the game due to the flu. Jofferey Lupul will make a return to Philly to play his old team, he was never able to score more than 50 points as a Flyer and he already has 56 this season. I doubt that many Flyers fans will care/remember him. I see his relationship to the Flyers' fans similar to Leafs' fans relationship with Kyle Wellwood. He never did much for us and we often forget he is in the league until we see him on one of the three teams he has played for since Toronto, and Leafs fans say in unison: "Hey, that's Kyle Wellwood! I remember him..." and that is about it. Don't look for Simmonds or Hartnell to run Lupul or anything like that. Do, however, look for Kessel to score for the fourth game in a row or Grabovski's line to get back on track after being blanked in Tuesday's loss to Winnipeg. Prediction: 3-1 Toronto.
Until Claude Giroux wins the Conn Smythe for the Maple Leafs
-Riley
