Careful observers of our season projections and playoff probabilities page might have noticed a new team sitting atop the league’s perch in terms of Stanley Cup chances over the last week: the Toronto Maple Leafs.



Until about Nov. 25, my model had the Nashville Predators as the odds-on favourites with Toronto and Tampa Bay duking it out for second place. Now it’s Toronto who are 18-8-0 on the season, but even more impressively went 9-5-0 with a plus-17 goal differential (tops in the league) without its best player, Auston Matthews.



That’s been the difference as the team has thrived despite being without an elite talent for a healthy stretch of time, upgrading my model’s opinion of the rest of the roster. On Wednesday night the Leafs got Matthews back into the lineup and he contributed three points en route to a 5-3 victory over a strong Sharks team. The Leafs are almost at full strength now, they’re missing just one more piece: William...