Why the Toronto Maple Leafs Will Easily Dispatch the Canadiens

1979. That was the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens met in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

When Gary Bettman and the league’s office settled on an all-Canadian division as their path forward to completing a 2020-21 season, you would be hard-pressed to find a Toronto Maple Leafs or Montreal Canadiens fan that was not hoping for this matchup ever since puck drop on the night of January 13th.

And for the first time in 42 years, two-thirds of the Original Six franchises are destined for one heck-of-a first-round war. But the 56-game process as to how these two teams got to this point could not be more contrary.

After leading the division for 106 of 116 total days, the postseason was never in doubt for Canada’s most well-rounded team.

After the rebuilding of their battered blueline in the offseason, the Toronto Maple Leafs had all the makings of a contender, and even in the face of inconsistent goaltending, the mentality Sheldon Keefe has instilled unto his roster has proven just as important as the personnel added along the way.

Veterans like Joe Thornton, Wayne Simmonds, and Zach Bogosian were brought in to use their big personalities and leadership attributes to change the aura surrounding the Matthews-Marner-Nylander core.

Doubling down on the fantastic start of his team, GM Kyle Dubas continued to add to the ‘Former Captaincy Club’, bringing in Nick Foligno to follow in his father’s footsteps.

This team has the chance to do something special. And their path to get here has been filled with expectations just like that.  But their counterpart cannot say the same. An incredible 7-1-2 start in the team’s first 10 games had Montrealers locking in a Canadiens vs. Avalanche Stanley Cup final, but the fall from grace was hard and sudden.

A 2-4-2 stretch cost head coach Claude Julien, assistant coach Kirk Muller, and goaltending coach Stéphane Waite their jobs, but with Dominque Ducharme promoted to interim man-in-charge, the Habs were still unable to overcome some severe roster inefficiencies.

Finishing off the season 17-20-9 has set up a collision course between the two most storied franchises in the NHL, and fans are salivating at the potential of a mammoth first-round series.

But as the 18 point standings chasm would show, there remains a sizable gap between the Leafs and the Canadiens and ultimately, this series may end up featuring two teams in different classes entirely for three specific reasons.

Reason #1: Team Strategy

Canadiens’ Offensive Scheme Plays Right into Leafs Defensive System.

As the 7-2-1 season series would indicate, the Toronto Maple Leafs match up very well against the Montreal Canadiens and that is because of the way Dominque Ducharme likes to generate his team’s offense.

The Canadiens often opt for quantity over quality which results in plenty of point shots, with little chance of going in.

In terms of low-danger shots for at five-on-five, the Habs rank fifth league-wide, which plays directly into Sheldon Keefe’s plan (stats; MoneyPuck). Protecting the net-front area has been a key element of the Leafs system, where conceding point shots in favour of slot chances has lead the team to success thus far.

The Leafs rank eighth in high-danger chances against per 60 minutes at five-on-five – and fourth since March 20th when Jack Campbell took over as the team’s starter  (stats; Natural Stat Trick).

For example, the Habs top pairing of Ben Chiarot and Shea Weber are two of the biggest culprits in the NHL regarding the lowest average expected goal value per five-on-five shot attempt. As of April 19th, Chiarot had the 8th worst xG value per shot attempt with his partner Weber ranking 18th (stats; JFresh).

In-zone offensive creation remains a struggle for a Canadiens team that lacks major offensive firepower, and as such, they rely on speed off the rush to generate most of their five-on-five goal-scoring.

As of May 5th, the team had averaged seven rush chances per game, and when they hit that number or higher, Montreal was 17-4-7. However, if the opposition limited them to six or fewer, the team cradled to 7-14-2 (source; Sportsnet).

And it just so happens the Leafs are one of the premier teams at preventing goals against scored off the rush. Per a JFresh article, Toronto ranks third league-wide with only 31% of their five-on-five goals against coming off the rush, behind only the suffocating Dallas Stars and the current Stanley Cup favourites, the Colorado Avalanche.

With the Canadiens scoring 1.3 rush goals per 60 at five-on-five – fourth-most in the league – and the Leafs only surrendering 0.6 – tied for second least – it would not surprise me to see Ducharme’s team struggle mightily to find offense in the tightened-up Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Reason #2: Questionable Coaching Decisions

Promoted mid-season to interim head coach, understandably Ducharme would have to deal with some rough stretches in his first season being the boss behind the bench. But for the Toronto Maple Leafs, exploiting questionable roster decisions is going to be a key component in eliminating the Montreal Canadiens quickly and swiftly.

Up front, one of the more prominent coaching decisions Ducharme seems to be making for game one is the healthy scratching of effective forwards Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Cole Caufield, in favour of trade deadline acquisition, Eric Staal.

Since April 5th, Staal’s first game with the Bleu Blanc et Rouge, he has only registered two goals and a secondary assist in his 21 games since the trade. An average game score of -0.22 has the long-time veteran only above three Canadien’s forwards: Michael Frolik, who has played six games as Ducharme’s taxi squad mainstay, Jesse Ylonen who made his season debut last Wednesday, and Jonathan Drouin, who has been taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team for personal reasons since April 28th.

Staal has an abysmal 39% expected goals rating since becoming a Montreal Canadien, by far the worst mark on the team, and although Kotkaniemi is only controlling 47% of the expected goals himself, the younger and more fleet of foot pivot has a lot more to give in a playoff series against the highly skilled Leafs roster (stats; Evolving-Hockey).

Finding a spot for Caufield as well should be imperative as no one in the current projected lineup has the ability to score goals quite like the rookie can. With four goals in 10 career games and the fifth-highest average game score of all forwards since his debut, scratching Caufield would be a mistake.

Similarly, on the backend, among the Habs most common top six blueliners, arguably the team’s most effective defensemen, Brett Kulak, ranked dead last in time on ice per game in the regular season.

Using Corey Sznajder’s manually tracked data, Kulak has been one of Montreal’s best defensemen in transition, ranking first with only 1.1 failed exits per 60 (Romanov ranks second at 1.7), and third with 6.7 entries per 60 (Petry leads with 7.7).

Kulak also ranks second among Habs defensemen in Wins Above Replacement (shooting-adjusted) and labeling the Alberta native as the team’s sixth or seventh defensemen will lead to an extremely disappointing and short series for the Montreal Canadiens.