The Toronto Maple Leafs can learn from the Edmonton Oilers.
Although it's too bad the Oilers lost, it's clear they had an amazing season and playoffs. The Toronto Maple Leafs, who have a very similar team, can learn a lot from their success.
The Edmonton Oilers valiant effort to force a Game 7 after trailing 3-0 is nothing short of miraculous. The Oilers pulled off the feat against the best defensive team in the league. Also, the Oilers faced a battle-tested Florida Panthers club that had already been to the Stanley Cup Finals the year before.
Despite the supreme effort, three particular mistakes played a significant role in keeping the Oilers from completing the ultimate comeback. So, let’s explore these mistakes and, most importantly, the valuable lessons the Leafs can distil from them as they approach next season with a long playoff run in mind.
Oilers Mistakes Provide Valuable Insights for the Toronto Maple Leafs
#1: The Oilers Lack of Depth Was Apparent
If you’re Kris Knoblauch, you want your top guys out on the ice when the game is on the line. There’s no sense in keeping them on the bench when the team is trailing. While that rationale makes sense, the fact is that the Oilers relied way too much on their top players.
In particular, Knoblauch loaded his top guns into one unit, deploying Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Evan Bouchard, and Mattias Ekholm on the same shift. During the Cup Final, that approach played perfectly into Paul Maurice’s strategy, as Maurice could use Sasha Barkov, knowing that McDavid or Draisaitl would be on the ice together.
Looking at it in hindsight, splitting up McDavid and Draisaitl would have made Maurice’s life much more difficult. But therein lies the issue. The Oilers didn’t have reliable wingers to play with Draisaitl. Assuming McDavid played with Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, there were no real top-six wingers to play with Draisaitl.
As for the Maple Leafs, this lesson underscores a mistake fromer coach Sheldon Keefe often made: Deploying Auston Matthews with Mitch Marner and William Nylander on the same unit when the game was on the line. That approach facilitated opposing coaches to focus their defensive efforts on one unit.
Moving forward, the Leafs must keep in mind that spreading out scoring into at least two lines, as the Panthers did, can wreak havoc on the opposition’s game plan.