The fleeting title of 'Best Team in Hockey'

The Toronto Maple Leafs are 8-0-2 in their past 10 games, and that win-loss record matches the domination witnessed on the ice.

Toronto routinely looks the quicker and more composed side right now, taking it to opponents on a nightly basis. Any time a talented team in a big market like Toronto catches fire, you know the question that follows: Are they the best team in hockey?

Calgary Flames head coach Darryl Sutter made that argument before their Saturday night matchup, observing that Toronto – at least in recent weeks – has outplayed every other team in the standings.

One of the fascinating parts of an 82-game regular season is it forces us to recalibrate what we think about players and teams multiple times over a six-month stretch. Sutter is correct that Toronto has accumulated the most points in the standings in the past few weeks, but does that make the Leafs better than a Boston Bruins team that has outplayed them over the duration of the season?

When I’m trying to gauge how teams have played season-to-date versus how they are playing right now, I like to look at margin of victory over a rolling 10-game sample. It allows you to measure the recency of a team's quality of play while being sensitive to impactful changes in the short term, like lineup changes resulting from injuries or player transactions.

When paired with a full season of data that is less sensitive to the volatility we know exists in hockey, you can get a very good feel for a team’s performance.

To Sutter’s point, there is a good argument the Maple Leafs are playing the best hockey right now. The below table shows, by conference, which teams have led (and trailed) by net goal differential over 10-game samples.

In the Eastern Conference, you have seen three clear leaders and two clear laggards.

The Boston Bruins came out of the gate roaring, passing the baton of clubhouse leader to the New Jersey Devils for a stretch through the month of November. But over the past few weeks, the Maple Leafs have leapfrogged the Devils in terms of domination factor, though those numbers are still quite close. Toronto has absolutely turned up the heat. Over this 10-game sprint, the Maple Leafs are outscoring opponents 36 to 19 (+17).

For the cellar dwellers, it’s been a two-horse race, with the Columbus Blue Jackets getting annihilated early and often, paving the way for the Philadelphia Flyers to follow suit.

What about out West? How many teams have been able to make the case they have played the best hockey at some point this season – similarly, how many teams have an argument for worst in the conference?

Take your pick between parity or volatility, but the Western Conference has seen much more jockeying, relatively speaking, than the Eastern Conference.

The Vegas Golden Knights came storming out of the gates and still hold the top seed but have played mediocre hockey (5-5-0 in the past 10 games) of late. Vegas cooling off a bit has paved the way for a handful of other teams – the Seattle Kraken, Winnipeg Jets, and Dallas Stars – to chase their conference lead.

Turning an eye to the draft lottery race, keep an eye on the Chicago Blackhawks. We expected the Blackhawks to struggle this season, a year that saw them push into a deep rebuild, and more trades may be coming. Head coach Luke Richardson had Chicago fighting a bit in October, but the past two months have seen the Blackhawks routinely blown off the ice. At one point in November, Chicago’s average margin of victory was -2.4 goals per game.

Bringing this back to Toronto for a moment. Yes, Sutter may have a point – Toronto is really dominating games like an elite team tends to do right now. But Toronto’s claim is one that a handful of other teams around the league could have made at different points of the season.

To achieve this level of dominance over a short-term stretch qualifies you as a good team. Being able to sustain this level of play over the duration of a season? That’s Stanley Cup-calibre play. Come March, we will have a much better understanding of the small group of teams capable of winning it all.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, NHL.com