The Toronto Maple Leafs will finally end their near 60-year championship drought and win the Stanley Cup this season.
That’s a sentence many Leafs fans have probably said to themselves heading into the 2023-24 NHL campaign.
Well, you’re in luck Leafs Nation, because we actually saw it happen – virtually that is.
Using NHL 24, the newest entry in the venerable EA Sports hockey video game, we simulated this season and came away with a result that saw the Leafs win it all.
Here’s a look at how the simulated season panned out.
The settings used
Before getting into anything else, it’s best if we describe what method we used for this simulation. We played out the year using the “Season Mode” in the game.
Additionally, we had the difficulty set to “Superstar,” the highest, with 20-minute periods and all extra time settings remaining how they would be in real life in both the regular season and playoffs.
Lastly, in order to get a better sense of where teams are right now as the season is beginning, we made it so there would be no CPU trades made and no injuries enabled.
This was a simulation looking at the league as it stands right at the precipice of the new season, with all teams playing at full strength at all times.
The Leafs dominated from start to finish
Toronto won the Cup in our simulation, and did so in dominant fashion with a Presidents’ Trophy-winning season. Toronto won 50 games and tallied 104 points to easily earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
The Leafs accomplished this thanks to their high-powered attack that saw them average 3.65 goals per game. On the other end, Toronto played a bend-but-don’t-break style of defense, allowing 2.89 goals per game during the regular season.
In the Western Conference, the Colorado Avalanche finished with 48 wins and 102 points to take the No. 1 seed in their conference.
As for other division winners, the New York Islanders won the Metropolitan with 99 points and the Vegas Golden Knights won the Pacific with 97 points.
Leafs finally get the job done when it matters most
The image you see above is how the playoff bracket played out in our simulation.
As you can see, five Canadian teams made it into the dance – the Leafs, Edmonton Oilers, Winnipeg Jets and, surprisingly, the Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators.
Ottawa lost a hard-fought seven-game series with the Islanders in its first taste of the postseason since 2017. Meanwhile, the Oilers dispatched the Canucks in five games in the first round, but were just as easily disposed of by the Golden Knights, who actually did make it back to the championship round for a shot at a rare Cup repeat. Winnipeg fell to those same Golden Knights in a first-round sweep.
It wasn’t meant to be for Vegas again, however, because Toronto finally showed some playoff resilience.
After an easy four-game sweep of the Detroit Red Wings, the Leafs were in for a dogfight of a series in the second round, once again facing the Florida Panthers. After the first four games saw the teams split things to make it a best-of-three, the Panthers took the pivotal Game 5, a sign that would surely spell doom for these Leafs in seasons past.
However, Toronto found that elusive extra gear that has been missing for so many years and forced Game 7 with an overtime victory in Game 6, followed by a 6-2 rout in the decisive game.
After that, it felt like all the pieces were finally going to fall into place for the Leafs. They swept the Islanders in the conference final and, though it took six games to defeat Vegas for the Cup, they walked away with their first championship since 1967.
Overall, this was a magical playoff run from these virtual Leafs that fans of the real team can only dream of.
A special season for Marner and Matthews
Mitch Marner won the Hart and Ted Lindsay Trophies for a regular season that saw him finish with a league-best 80 assists and finish second in total points with 111. His Leafs teammate, Auston Matthews, on the other hand, won the Art Ross and Rocket Richard Trophies for the 112 points and 69 goals he put up – the first 69-goal season since Mario Lemieux did it in the 1995-96 season.
And Marner’s MVP season wasn’t just limited to the regular season. He also captured the Conn Smythe for his playoff-leading 37 points.
Other awards of note
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the other notable awards from the simulation:
