Last year when the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated from the playoffs, I thought it would be a good idea to go over every goal the team scored that season and narrow the top 16 goals to form a bracket – like the Stanley Cup playoffs – and ask our followers to identify the Leaf player who scored the goal of the season.
There were a lot of participants in last year’s Twitter polls, and in the end, followers chose who scored the goal of the season with the Maple Leafs last year. The votes came, and that was Mitch Marner’s goal against the Vegas Golden Knights from November 2, 2021.
However, it’s time to put together another 16 of the best goals scored by the Toronto Maple Leafs last season. It took me a while to look at all 279 goals, but in the end, I narrowed it down to 30 of the best goals, and then narrowed it down to 16 to fit the category.
HOW THIS CLASS WILL WORK – If you don’t remember – we will be posting a daily poll on our Twitter account (TLNdc) and each day you will have the opportunity to vote on the goal from last season that you would like to see in the next round. Both videos of the goals will be in the tweet and below will be a poll with the player’s name and the date the goal was scored.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the bracket and all the first-round matches…
First round matches:
John Tavares (against PHI on November 2 and 22) vs. Dennis Malgin (against ANA on October 30 and 22)
Auston Matthews (v. New York on January 23 and 23) v. William Nylander (v. STL on December 27 and 22)
Zack Aston Reese (against WSH on Jan 29/23) vs John Tavares (against FLA on Apr 10/23)
Mitch Marner (vs. EDM March 11/23) vs. William Nylander (vs. Los Angeles December 8/22)
Mitch Marner (vs. New York Jan. 25 & 23) vs. William Nylander (vs. BUF Nov. 19 & 22)
Ryan O’Reilly (vs. BUF on Feb. 21 & 23) vs. Mitch Marner (vs. PIT on Nov. 26 & 22)
Mitch Marner (against NJ March 7/23) vs. William Nylander (against FLA January 17/23)
William Nylander (against MIN on February 24 and 23) vs. Mitch Marner (against Che on February 19 and 23)
This is what the Maple Leafs goal of the season slice looks like so you can see where everyone is on which side of the arc, etc.
The first round of matches will start tomorrow, and each day we will tweet one match from the first round. You’ll have 24 hours to vote for who you’d like to see in the next round before the next poll is tweeted out.
Once the first round is complete, I’ll put together another article summarizing that round, showing who advanced to the next round, who was eliminated, what the next matches are in the next round, etc.