Saturday night, the Maple Leafs and Red Wings played a crazy game that ended in a 10-7 victory by Toronto against Detroit.
You obviously don’t see this kind of game too often, which included a 7:10 second streak in which Detroit scored five times.
It’s the kind of result that leads to some pretty unique stats. We released our five favorites that show how this is the kind of game that we see too rarely in this league.
1. No Power Play Needed
What’s incredible is that these two clubs scored 17 goals in 60 minutes of play. On the other hand, they didn’t need the power play to do so. In fact, the Maple Leafs didn’t even get a chance to test their massive offense while Detroit missed all three opportunities.
You have to go back to February 10, 1993 to find a team that has scored at least 10 goals without any on the power play. It was the Calgary Flames, who had scored 13 against the Sharks. San Jose finished that season with a stellar 11-71-2 record.
The last match of 17 goals without any success on the attack at 5 is even older. It was January 21, 1945. The Bruins then easily defeated the Rangers by a score of 14-3. In short, it was completely another era.
2. Mitch Marner inflates his record
Mitch Marner was the offensive star in this game, which was definitely not lacking. With four goals, including three in a row at one point, and two assists, he was the group’s leading scorer. In fact, in the past 40 years, no Maple Leafs player has scored better than six points in a game.
It’s already an impressive collection, but when you add his age and the fact that it’s on the road, it elevates the status of this game even more. In the entire history of the NHL, only six players have achieved this feat at a younger age than Mitch Marner. Ironically, two of them did it with the Nordiques (Mats Sundin and Paul Stastny). The other four are Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, Eric Lindros and Eric Staal. Not a bad list to join!
Putting forth his greatest offensive outing in the NHL to help the @MapleLeafs outpower the Red Wings 10-7 on Saturday, Mitch Marner’s 4 goals and 6 points were both career highs but also made him younger than all but 6 on this list of road efforts of at least 4 Gs and 2 assists pic.twitter.com/iYcqI1u0M0
– StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) February 27, 2022
3. The goalkeepers a little less
Obviously, when there are so many goals in a game, goalkeepers don’t look very good. It is no coincidence that both clubs used their substitute at some point in the game. On the other hand, this time, we are on another level.
With an average goalkeeper performance, we should have seen 4.8 goals. We are therefore 12 above this projection, which makes it the worst goalkeeper outing, by far, since the arrival of more advanced statistics in 2007. For a club like Toronto, it is worrying because Jack Campbell , who started the season strong, is really struggling.
His save % has slipped 5% since Jan. 1. It may not seem like a lot, but tell yourself that it’s one more goal for every 20 shots. It’s starting to look pretty fast!
With 17 goals on 4.8 expected goals, the Leafs Wings game is by far the worst combined goaltending game since the NHL’s event tracking started in 2007. Previous worst game was Jets 9-8 win over the Flyers in 2011 with 8.7 goals above expected.https://t.co/xAE8noeqUS pic.twitter.com/Y8m7MAek7c
— MoneyPuck.com (@MoneyPuckdotcom) February 27, 2022
4. 10-7 is not Detroit’s favorite scoreline
The next stat is more of a coincidence than anything, but still had to be noted. The last score of 10-7 dates back to 1993. The Sabers won that game…against the Detroit Red Wings. Today’s fans don’t have to remember that score too much, but it’s still an incredible coincidence. It’s definitely not Detroit’s favorite score.
5. Don’t Forget Bunting
We have already talked about Mitch Marner, but we must also highlight the game of Michael Bunting, who finished the evening with five points. You’ll never hear from him in the Calder race because he’s too old and the voters hate to encourage that unless they have to.
That being said, Bunting is currently the second-leading rookie in scorer with 40 behind Lucas Raymond, who also helped his record in this offensive festival. When you’re as stuck with the cap as the Maple Leafs are right now, you have to find NHL players all over the place and they seem to have nailed it with Michael Bunting.