Toronto Maple Leafs: Dermott and Johnsson to the Rescue

On Sunday night, a pair of Toronto Maple Leafs were given a shot at elimination game redemption.

Boy, did they ever take it.

With their season very literally on the line, the Toronto Marlies welcomed back a pair of prodigal sons into the fold. Fresh off extremely successful NHL stints, Andreas Johnsson and Travis Dermott made their triumphant returns to the rink they had called home for the past two years. And once pleasantries were exchanged, the duo would become desperately needed reinforcements for the Marlies, vital to their success as they took the ice for their Game Five tilt with the Utica Comets.

Racing out to a 2-0 series lead on home ice, the series shifted over to Utica, tilting the scales back the other way. On home ice, the Comets flipped a switch, storming back to pummel the Marlies by consecutive 5-2 margins.

Nearly every facet of their roster was exposed. Namely, Garret Sparks, still basking in the afterglow of capturing the Baz Bastien Award, allowed 7 goals on 27 total shots. He was yanked for Calvin Pickard in both games.

In no uncertain terms, the Marlies were floundering.

To make matters worse, Utica was then gifted with a gold mine of reinforcements for games three and four. Squarely in the offseason, the Canucks imparted to them talent the likes of Jonathan Dahlen, Reid Boucher, Nikolay Goldobin and Adam Gaudette, blessing the Comets with overwhelming depth.

Preparing for such a lineup forced the Marlies to wrestle with a decidedly foreign circumstance. In the regular season, the Marlies outnumbered practically every other team when it came to skill.

Against Utica, however, that was no longer the case.

Enter Dermott and Johnsson.

Dermott’s Role

“It’s like coming home”

That’s how Dermott answered the first of many post-game questions centred around his return to the AHL, all while grinning ear to ear.

It would’ve been easy for the 21-year-old phenom to turn his back on his old Ricoh Coliseum stomping grounds. Clearing every hurdle set before him with the Leafs, he quickly established himself as an impact NHL defender, emerging as a blueline pillar for the club moving forward.

Reeling from a crushing game 7 loss, Dermott could have easily chosen to forgo yet another extended playoff run.

Although, that’s just not the type of person he is.

To understand the extent of how welcome Dermott’s return to the Marlies lineup was, all you’d need to do is ask his coach. On multiple occasions following January 24th, Sheldon Keefe opined how heavy Dermott’s absence weighed on his blueline.

Undoubtedly, it was warranted.

Outside of Timothy Liljegren, Dermott’s departure exposed the lack of a truly effective puck mover within the Marlies D corps. And not just one capable of a completing a first pass, but someone adept at peering through traffic to efficiently hit streaking wingers with speed.

For the Marlies, zone exits quickly became an area of concern in the post-Dermott era.

A weakness that a punishingly fast Comets team began to easily exploit.

Johnsson’s Role

While Dermott’s return was the most urgently needed, that didn’t stop Keefe from welcoming Johnsson back with open arms as well.

Like Dermott, Johnsson was immediately tasked with revamping an aspect of the roster that was floundering in his absence. In this case, it was the power play.

Despite their unmatched statistical success in the regular season, the Marlies power play endured as the team’s Achilles heel. Not even Johnsson’s presence helped throughout his 54 games, with the man advantage failing to rise above 13th best in the AHL at any point.

Help did come, however, in the form of Pierre Engvall and Carl Grundstrom. The pair of late-season arrivals served as an initial jolt to a unit on life support. In the two games the duo played together, Grundstrom provided net-front presence, with Engvall roaming the perimeter as a shooting threat.

And, just like that, it worked. The fruits of their labour materializing in the form of goals like the one below:

“Hello, 911? Yes, I’d like to report a water bottle murder”.

Alas, it was unsustainable.

Despite a whopping 25 combined power plays for both teams across games 1 and 2, the Marlies converted on just two of their own. This only grew worse in games 3 and 4. Tails firmly between their legs, the Marlies returned to Ricoh with their season hanging in the balance, owning the second-worst efficiency in the East at just 16%.

And then Johnsson arrived.

Moving On

Being handed their first power play opportunity just over two minutes into the game, the Marlies immediately took advantage of their luck.

With Johnsson playing off the wall, he dished the puck to Engvall, who then fed Grundstrom for the back door tap in. The goal served as the culmination of the unit’s respective talents, with each player’s skill enhanced by those around him.

This season, Johnsson served as an effective off the wall distributor, albeit one lacking a perimeter option capable of moving the puck with the same pace. Engvall emerged as a lethal outside shooting threat needing a net-front operator to make use of his playmaking ability. And then there’s Grundstrom, the proven crash-and-bang slot operator clamouring for loose pucks to fire home.

Paired together, the trio performed their respective roles to perfection, evidenced below.

https://twitter.com/davidnestico200/status/990686362566365185

Later in the third, the unit struck again.

Perhaps the most underrated aspect of Dermott and Johnsson’s respective returns is the pace in which they see the game. Both finished their NHL stints as better players than they were when they started.

As such, that development became achingly apparent on Sunday.

Slow Motion

The AHL is a fast league. It’s just that the NHL happens to be a whole different beast altogether.

Regardless of team or individual, the number one difference identified by anyone who’s logged games at both levels is the decrease in decision-making time from one to the other. With the pair of youngsters boasting dual experience, both Dermott and Johnsson now appear to be observing the game in slow motion.

In the previous clip, watch the way Dermott appears to completely commit to shooting, only to then dish it cross-ice to Johnsson in a split second, all without breaking form. This is a perfect example. Once receiving the pass, Johnsson then opts to play give-and-go with Dermott to open up a serviceable shooting lane.

Now, Johnsson could have fired the puck from the point and simply hope it finds its way through. But, that’s a decidedly low percentage play.

AHL defensive strategies tend to be primarily geared towards clogging shooting lanes, with the defending team usually collapsing into the slot within their own zone. Knowing this, Johnsson subtly adjusts his body to change the shooting angle, prying open space to wire it home.

There, housed in the clip above, is what the Marlies had been missing the whole time.

An extra fake. The half second of patience. The flat passes. These microscopic tics, which go largely unnoticed by the casual observer, separate the contenders from the pretenders.

Next: The Road Ahead

With Dermott and Johnsson, the Marlies now find themselves firmly in latter camp.