It's hard to figure that someone who averages less than 8 minutes a game can make enough of an impact to dictate whether a team wins or loses. Now if you're talking about someone like Kulemin or even Jvr, then it's a reasonable argument. What you really have to do is judge him based on his limited icetime, not the team, as there are just too many variables.
Both McLaren and Orr have been good contributors this season so far. Especially Orr. Happy to see Frazer drop the mitts yesterday. I really missed seeing a fight.
And yet the McLaren/Orr presence is supposed to be viewed as this key to victory. The team does fine whether McLaren/Orr are in the lineup or not as evidenced by their record.
The Leafs missed the playoffs for 10 years because they had:
1) Bad goaltending
2) No scoring depth
3) A bad team defense
4) An incompetent PK (combo of bad defense and bad goaltending)
They now make the playoffs because:
1) They have good goaltending
2) Scoring depth
3) Better positional defense
4) A strong PK (good defense and good goaltending)
And that is the only reason.