The Toronto Maple Leafs Stayed the Course – Now What ?
By James Tanner
Toronto Maple Leafs and the NHL Playoffs
The Toronto Maple Leafs biggest critics say that they have too much money tied into too few players, that they haven’t balanced their roster, and that have gone cheap on goalies, and that their team isn’t physical enough.
Let’s ignore the first three of the Leafs six playoff losses, because their best players were on entry-level contracts, and the team lost to Boston twice in game 7, and Washington once in game 6 – all three series were examples of a young team over-achieving.
The Leafs are absolved of criticism for those losses.
The next three are tricky, because the Leafs played well enough to win each series but still lost.
The thing is though, how they lost does matter, and not just that they did.
Columbus
Columbus set an NHL record for save percentage in a playoff series, as their goalies saved more than 98% of the 5v5 shots the Leafs took over five games.
The Leafs goalies were great in this series, and their defense was great. Even their offense was great, creating only slightly less chances per minute than they did in the regular season where they were a top offensive team.
The Leafs biggest strength failed them.
But they were not pushed around, they weren’t outworked, and the other team wasn’t able to prevent them from creating scoring chances – they just got goalied. It happens.
Montreal
Against Montreal, the Leafs blew a 3-1 lead, but Auston Matthews couldn’t shoot the puck, and John Tavares played less than two minutes in the entire series. Still, the Leafs were the better team in three of the four games they lost.
It’s worth pointing out that they lost game six after storming back from a two goal deficit, then outshot Montreal 12-0 in overtime, before an 80 foot knuckle-puck beat Jack Campbell, directly after Montreal was not called for elbowing Alex Galchenyuk in the head.
Again you can’t blame this loss on roster construction, goaltending or any of the other criticisms levelled against the Leafs. Take the two top centres off any team and see what happens.