Mirtle: The Maple Leafs are one of the NHL’s best teams at midseason. Is it sustainable? (paywall)

This was actually a great read. Not sure who heard the Leafs Report pod (Jonas and Mirtle) this week, but they had a serious back and forth with Jonas doing his usual gloom review of the leafs and his typical "they shouldnt be winning based on spreadsheets"

This article really breaks down and makes some great points as to why they are:

• simple chart of goals for against over the season, showing the ups and downs of the season, but us always being on the right side of that. a special note on this one was that we had a serious downturn in the GF at one point (matthews et al injured and we had a lineup with 4 marlies in it)...but during that time we had elite level defense and goaltending keep us afloat

• a chart showing shooting percentage vs opponents and how we're ahead on that throughout the season....but that makes sense given some of our elite goalscorers

• a nerd stat PDO (percentage drive outcome) - main point here being we've been above the 1.00 mark which good teams always are, that even good teams always revert back to the mean...but if things liek the stats above hold true we should stay safely north of it

• and a good one showing expected goals, and expected high danger goals...both of which the leafs remain favourably as well.

the main conclusion of the article is that the leafs "new way" of playing IS sustainable, while they arent perfect if they can make a few tweeks (adding a 3C that can score) and get the power play on track...our metrics would turn elite and we'd be a team tops in the contention for the cup.

my personal view... is this is a nice eff you to jonas, who i'm convinced cheers against the leafs so he can be "right"