Toronto Maple Leafs Looked Good Despite Game 1 Loss

Once again, the Toronto Maple Leafs lose game one of a playoff series. Game ones have not been kind to Toronto this year, but hopefully, the series-ending result of winning will continue.

Yes, the Toronto Maple Leafs lost 4-2 in game one against Florida, but it wasn’t for lack of effort. Toronto players were buzzing around the Panthers’ net all night with many scoring chances. The bounces didn’t go their way, and that happens. Credit goes to Panthers’ goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky for thwarting many of Toronto’s good scoring chances. Toronto finished the game with 36 shots. William Nylander led the way with seven shots, and Auston Matthews registered six. The goals will come, it’s only a matter of time. (Stats from NHL.com)

There were many parts of the game where Toronto looked really good and got scoring chance after scoring chance but could not beat Bobrovsky. The Maple Leafs can win this series if they maintain the level of effort they had in game one. The bounces will go Toronto’s way, eventually. They need to keep applying pressure.

If this group of players can bounce back after losing 7-3 to Tampa Bay in game one of round one, they can bounce back from a 4-2 game one loss to Florida in round two. The players need to forget about the loss and focus on the positives from game one.

Toronto Maple Leafs Looking to Win Game Two

I don’t expect Toronto head coach Sheldon Keefe to make many changes to the lineup for game two. One change I think they need to make is possibly going with 11 forwards and seven defensemen. Florida showed that they are a faster group than Toronto in game one. Keefe could respond by swapping in Sam Lafferty for David Kampf and adding Erik Gustafsson on defense.

Veteran defenseman Mark Giordano is starting to show his age a bit. He is looking rather slow, and I think Keefe should limit Giordano’s minutes. Another benefit to playing with seven defensemen is it puts less pressure on players like Giordano to play more minutes. Keefe can still give him 10-12 minutes while giving more playing time to the faster Gustafsson.

Another thing Toronto needs to adjust heading into game two is man-to-man coverage. Poor man-to-man coverage led to at least two of Florida’s goals in game one. It’s okay to lay a big hit or box a guy out from the crease, but you need to make sure that player stays covered. Correcting this and adding some speed to the lineup should help Toronto win game two on Thursday.