Toronto Maple Leafs: Lessons Learned From A Painful Decade

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Jan 18, 2014; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Randy Carlyle looks on from the bench against the Montreal Canadiens at Air Canada Centre. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports /

Kitty-Bar-The-Door Doesn’t Work

This was probably the most painful lesson learned during the Toronto Maple Leafs recent ten year stretch of misery.

You know what I’m talking about. Yeah, game seven.

Midway through game seven against the Boston Bruins, the Toronto Maple Leafs were up 2-1 and were keeping pace with the Bruins at 5v5 in shot attempts. That’s when Randy Carlyle started to switch the game plan.

The Leafs reverted to protect-the-lead mode and struggled to hang on for the rest of the second period. Early in the third, they scored again.

It’s now 3-1 Leafs and the Carlyle-led mission dove deeper into protection. The next three minutes they wouldn’t record a single 5v5 shot attempt. Beating the odds, though, the first shot attempt after the 3-1 goal found the back of the net.

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At 4-1 is where the Leafs went from protecting the lead to full-blow kiddie bar the door mode.

Let’s flashback to the 2-1 point, when the Leafs were hanging in at 5v5 with the Bruins. Remember that? Ah, good times.

For the final 14 minutes and 31 seconds the Leafs would record three shot attempts, with only one hitting the net. Instead of continuing the pace they had to get a 2-1 lead, the Leafs were killing themselves shift after shift.

Possession matters and more often than not means better things for the team who has the better metric. At a tally of 15-3 over the last 14:31 of the third period, the Bruins turned possession into a tie game.

The Leafs spent the majority of the third period essentially telling the Bruins they could have the puck, free of charge, and the hockey gods could do the rest. Well, the hockey gods are a vengeful folk.

What Carlyle did in that game was the beginning of the end for him in Toronto, and he should have been fired on the spot instead of praised for the team reaching the post-season. After seven straight seasons of no playoffs, though, praise was the only option for many.

The moral of the story from game seven is that kitty bar the door doesn’t work and is a poor choice in game plan. Possession works. Sustained possession. If you get a lead playing a certain way, keep playing that way.

Allowing the opposition to take the possession reigns and hoping for the best is a fool’s path, and will almost certainly lead to an undesirable result. Under Mike Babcock, though, there shouldn’t be much concern of this coaching extremist tactic to be employed.

Next: Chasing Big Fish Leaves You Hungry

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