Joe S. said:
I guess but I?m pretty sure every contending team has lost to a weaker opponent at least once this year.
Just quickly looking at TB - they?ve lost to Buffalo, NJ, Ottawa and montreal.
Colorado has lost to Arizona twice.
Record against Eastern Conference Playoff Teams
Toronto: 10-4-1
Boston: 5-8-2
Tampa: 7-9-3
Florida: 11-4-3
Carolina: 10-6-5
New York: 13-5-0
Washington: 7-8-2
Pittsburgh: 9-7-3
Record against bottom 10 teams in the league
Toronto: 17-7-1
Boston: 24-2-0
Tampa: 22-3-1
Florida: 21-4-0
Carolina: 15-5-2
New York: 20-1-2
Washington: 15-5-4
Pittsburgh: 17-5-4
The Leafs definitely play down to their opponents but they aren't horrendously off what most teams do. I'm not going to delve into the details of each win/loss for every team but just in the Leafs they had
Montreal: 4-2 loss where they outshot Montreal 51-18
Arizona: 5-4 OT loss where they outshot Arizona 38-23 and Matthews was interfered with on the game winning goal
Arizona: 2-1 loss where they outshot Arizona 46-18
Ottawa: 3-2 loss where they outshot Ottawa 48-36
Montreal: 5-2 loss where they outshot Montreal 37-24
Buffalo: 5-2 loss where they got outshot 36-38 (Outdoor game)
San Jose: 5-3 loss where they outshot the Sharks 33-31
Buffalo: 5-1 loss where they were outshot 30-31
So in their 8 losses to bottom 10 teams they got outscored 34-17 while outshooting their opponents 319-219.
Leafs have a 5.3% shooting percentage in those 8 losses. Their opponents have a 15.5% shooting percentage.
The Leafs absolutely hold some responsibility as a team for some of those losses but a good chunk of our "we suck against bad teams" games have also been a result of our goaltenders sucking.