from Travis Yost of TSN,

Could this be the year for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

That’s not something I have written during my tenure at TSN because for as long as the new-era Maple Leafs have existed, there has always been a fundamental flaw. Unreliable goaltending, a porous blueline, star players going quiet during pivotal stretches – the organization and fans have seen it all.

There is no doubt that Toronto is one of a handful of teams in this year’s Stanley Cup race. Most sportsbooks see five genuine favorites – Toronto joined by the Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vegas Golden Knights, and Florida Panthers, with plenty more competition within the Eastern Conference.

But this year feels a bit different.

One of the things I’ve been paying attention to in recent years is what I’ll call Players Above Break-Even, or the percentage of rostered players carrying expected goal rates north of 50 per cent. It’s a simple but an effective approach for analyzing full roster performance; it simultaneously captures the ability of top-end players to dominate their opponents, and weeds out top-heavy teams that generally struggle in the postseason against better competition.

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