After another disappointing first-round loss, the Toronto Maple Leafs have to take a long look at themselves in the mirror this offseason. The almost decade-long strategy of hoping the core four will break through has yet to work.
And to find success, sometimes a little copying isn’t so bad. There are strategies, playstyles, and team-building philosophies the Leafs can learn from the Stanley Cup finalist (about to be champion) Florida Panthers. While trying to carbon copy a whole team isn’t the right thing to do, using the Panthers as an influence moving forward could help Toronto (hopefully) find more success.
The Panthers made a franchise-altering trade two years ago, sending Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar to Calgary and landing Matthew Tkachuk, but they were already one of the best teams in the league before the deal. Making a blockbuster, star-studded trade shouldn’t be made just because the Stanley Cup champs did so. That’s how you lose a deal.
But other parts of the Panthers roster construction are important to examine. While both Florida and Toronto have superstar forwards, the rest of their respective rosters look wildly different.
And with experience playing against the Panthers two postseasons ago, the Leafs know how they play. Brad Treliving knows the Leafs need to add more snot to be a successful playoff team, but the Panthers are on another level. They walk the line between hard-nosed and dirty better than anyone, something Toronto consistently struggles with.
Let’s take a look at what makes Florida so successful, and what the Leafs can take from them to try and improve.
The bluelines couldn’t be more different
Toronto and Florida’s defencemen are so different, they are barely even comparable.
While Morgan Rielly is a top pair defenceman, who’s had some elite playoff runs, no one else on Toronto’s blueline is even close to that quality of player. Meanwhile, Florida has three guys who can easily be qualified as top-pair defencemen.
Aaron Ekblad, Gustav Forsling, and Brandon Montour all play differently, but are all top-pair quality defencemen who would be either the best or second-best blueliners on the Leafs. No matter how Florida got them, finding elite talent on the back end is a key piece of the Panthers team-building philosophy. So far in Toronto, it hasn’t been.
Florida tied the Winnipeg Jets for the best goals against per game during the regular season, and it was a surprise to nobody. In addition to the big three, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Niko Mikkola combined to be +21, and Dmitry Kulikov added 20 points and a +15 rating. For comparison, the Leafs couldn’t find consistent pairs and used Mark Giordano, Conor Timmins, Simon Benoit, Timothy Liljegren, Joel Edmundson, and T.J. Brodie in the bottom four.
Both teams employ elite forwards, with the Panthers featuring Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, and Matthew Tkachuk, but Florida prioritizes the blueline much more than the Leafs have.
And while Toronto has gotten a bit unlucky on the back end, with Jake Muzzin suffering what are presumably career-ending injuries and T.J. Brodie falling off a cliff this year, neither would make enough of a difference to put the Leafs blueline on par with Florida.
One of their biggest flaws is the Leafs have bet on their big forwards to produce enough offence that their defencemen don’t need to help score. It’s been their strategy for too long, and while it seems to work in the regular season, the team’s complete lack of offence in the playoffs shows the blueline needs to help out more on the rush and in the offensive zone.
Three Panthers defencemen scored over 30 points last season, while Rielly was the only Leafs blueliner to do so. Toronto’s defence core didn’t score a goal during the first-round loss to Boston, while the Panthers defence has scored 11 times so far this postseason.
It feels almost wrong to blame the defence for the lack of scoring, and they shouldn’t take the brunt of the criticism. But in transition and in the offensive zone, they give almost no support to the forwards, giving opponents a much easier time defending.
Clearly, the core four haven’t been good enough, and this offseason could be the end of the experiment with them. But it would help a lot to get some scoring, or at least some puck-moving, from the blueline. If Toronto wants to go on deep playoff runs, they should see how Florida prioritizes their defence and do the same.
Is it time to spend big on a goalie?
The Maple Leafs aren’t going to end up with a goalie making $11M like Sergei Bobrovsky, but his play is proof a good netminder is an important part of winning a Cup.
Joseph Woll can be that guy, but his health is a huge risk. His playoff numbers are superb, and there’s no doubt if he can stay on the ice for a full playoff run he can be one of the Leafs best players. It’s just the injuries. The Leafs need to find another reliable goalie in case Woll can’t handle a big workload.
For years the Leafs have tried to bargain bin their way to good goaltending, but the team in front of the goalie isn’t good enough to do so. The Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights might be able to squeak an unproven goalie to a Cup, but the Leafs don’t have the back-end talent to make that happen. Meanwhile, Andrei Vasilevksy and Bobrovsky have been involved in four straight finals.
The days of cutting corners during roster construction should be over, and that includes the goaltending. Ilya Samsonov quality goalies shouldn’t be starting playoff games for the Leafs anymore if they are serious about contending.
It’ll take some sacrifice to the forward group, but that Trent Frederic goal in Game 3 should be replaying in Brad Treliving’s head all offseason. Those goals just can’t happen anymore.
The rat factor
Watching Oilers fans discover the pure rattiness of the Panthers has been cathartic, but also a reminder of what success in the playoffs looks like. Florida buys into playoff-style hockey, all season, and that’s exactly what Toronto needs to do.
And it doesn’t mean surrounding the core with goons or pests, but getting the core to buy in to never missing a check, defending themselves, and forechecking hard.
It’s never been the core four’s identity or strong suit, which means change might be needed, but that’s how you win in the playoffs. If the players can’t buy into that style of play, they won’t win. It’s as simple as that.
Just like they won’t end up with an $11M goalie, the Leafs aren’t going to magically become the dirtiest team in the league filled with pests. But they need to be more like the Panthers and less like they’ve been for the last eight years.
It’s possible this offseason
With so few defencemen signed for next year, and a goalie spot opened up, most of this is possible to fix heading into next year.
High-quality defencemen, even Montour, can hit the open market and the Leafs will surely be all over them. There are plenty of defencemen the Leafs can target come July 1, and they’ll need to sign multiple to fix the blueline that’s struggled so mightily in the past.
And while there aren’t many starting calibre goalies hitting free agency, there are some good tandem options. Maybe the Leafs find a great 1B to play alongside Woll, giving them options in case injuries happen (which they probably will).
But the trade market for goalies is also loaded with front-end guys. Treliving could swing big and land the Leafs a bonafide starter and solve the goaltending problem just like that.
All this sounds a bit crazy, but it really is possible. Maybe it means not bringing back Tyler Bertuzzi, or relying on young guys like Nicholas Robertson or even Easton Cowan up front, but the Leafs could end up with a much better defence core and goaltending duo next season. Treliving has a lot of work to do, but everything is on the table.
