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Leafs vs. Lightning, head to head matchups. Who has the edge?
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The art of a playoff collapse: Looking back at the Leafs’ recent first round failures
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This is Kyle Dubas’s last dance as GM if the Maple Leafs don’t get past the first round
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Out of the 15 simulations, the Leafs only got out of the first round six times. The biggest Cup favourite? The Colorado Avalanche.
If the current NHL playoff bracket was simulated 15 times, how many of them would result in Stanley Cup wins for the Toronto Maple Leafs?
It was a question that only a video game could answer.
For some bizarre reason, I thought it would be a good idea to subject myself to hours of simulating the playoffs on my PS5 with “NHL 22”, EA Sports’ latest hockey video game, to see how many times the Leafs would’ve won the Cup — or at least the number of times they would’ve gotten out of the first round.
It was a mad experiment for mad times. So let’s have a little fun and see how it turned out.
And no, I didn’t play each game, but instead used the built-in simulation in playoff mode to skip through each match, letting the video game take the wheel in this very unscientific experiment.
It was a lot of pressing the same button over and over again. And again.
Were the Leafs Stanley Cup champions during any of those attempts? They were finally on the ninth, beating out the St. Louis Blues in five games. Unfortunately for them, that was the only time they would reach the Stanley Cup Finals in this hypothetical, not-at-all accurate study.
But that wasn’t the only interesting thing for Toronto. Very much like the Star’s own Kevin McGran, who’s expecting the series to swing in Tampa’s favor, the game predicted the Lightning would be victorious nine out of the 15 first round matchups.
The game also simulated the Leafs losing to the Panthers in the second round four times and losing in the conference finals once against the Penguins. Then there was the single time they went the whole way.
The biggest favorite overall? The game simulated three Stanley Cup wins for the Colorado Avalanche, while predicting two each for the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning.
As for the other Canadian teams, the Oilers made the Stanley Cup finals three times — with one Cup win — while the Flames got to the final round eleven.
EA Sports did their own simulation Monday, with the Panthers taking the Cup against the Avalanche in six games. The Leafs, in their test, beat the Lightning in the first round but lost to the Panthers.
How much stock should we put into these video game results? Honestly, not that much. When you strip the human element out of the game, such as accounting for injuries, lucky breaks and mishaps, this shouldn’t really mean a whole lot. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago when the Lightning were swept by the Blue Jackets the first round in 2019 despite being the President Trophy winners and Stanley Cup favorites.
But can the virtual become the reality this year? Anything can happen, and the only thing to do is to wait and see.
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