Let’s take a walk down memory lane.
We’re in overtime.
14:15 to go in the frame. Dougie Hamilton sends a clean pass from the Bruins’ blueline straight to Patrice Bergeron, bypassing Toronto’s one–two–two setup. Toronto Maple Leafs’ defence pair of Jake Gardiner and Cody Franson sit back, giving the blue line up to Boston as Phil Kessel and James Van Riemsdyk desperately try to converge on the Bruins’ star centreman. It’s too easy an entry for Bergeron, who takes a stroll behind the Leafs’ net and starts a sequence that would mark the beginning of a decade worth of jokes.
“It was 4–1.”
While none of the players on that 2012–13 Toronto Maple Leafs roster are still with the team, this moment started a narrative that has persisted long after these players moved on. The Leafs are chokers. They don’t have that killer instinct. They’ll always lose the big game. They can’t adjust to playoff hockey.
The Sheldon Keefe Leafs
That narrative was never louder than in the 2020–21 season. Fresh off a disappointing loss to Columbus in the play-in the year prior, Toronto dominated the Covid-created NHL North Division. Despite an unfortunate injury to John Tavares early in the series, Toronto climbed to a 3–1 series lead. That’s when the curse of 2013 hit this young team full force.
A careless Galchenyuk turnover in Game 5 led to a Nick Suzuki overtime winner.
Travis Dermott then forgot how to play hockey in Game 6, coughing the puck up to Paul Byron, who set up Jesperi Kotkaniemi for the OT game-winner.
Game seven was simply a formality. Toronto played their worst game of the season and were laughed off the ice in a 3–1 Habs win.
In 2022 and 2023, the topic of conversation shifted. Coaching. Pundits and fans alike talked about John Cooper and Paul Maurice and the “mind games” they would play, and Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe just wasn’t on that same level.
The most iconic moment from that discourse? Paul Maurice’s 5–1 gesture to the referees after Florida beat Toronto 4–2 in Game 1 of the second round.
After a disappointing loss to a Bergeron and Krejci-less Bruins in Round 1 last year, enough was enough.
Sheldon Keefe was fired, and Craig Berube was hired.
Quoting myself
Back in December 2024, I wrote an article talking about Craig Berube’s system and how it changed the Toronto Maple Leafs as we know them. At the time, fans were worried about the team’s lack of ability to score off the rush the way they had in the past. They had far less possession of the puck under Berube than Keefe, and advanced analytics accounts like JFresh had the team as “outperforming their expected goals.”
My general takeaway from writing that article? Well, let’s let old me take the reins for a quick shift.
“However, the downfall of Toronto’s offence in the playoffs has often been their inability to translate that elite regular season rush offence into a playoff setting with any modicum of success…
It’s for those reasons that I’m willing to give Berube and his system time…come playoff time, all the games are largely dump-ins. Most of the scoring opportunities come off special teams…
Berube’s vision for this team is one that he believes is the only true way to win come playoff time. It’s a system that relies on a consistent motor from its forwards, and defencemen who can efficiently gather retrievals and make quick decisions.”
Today
Fast forward to today, and these words ring more true than ever. The team went on a 9–1 run to end the season, culminating in a five-game win streak. For the first time, everyone was playing in these final games, and the team had something to play for. The Atlantic Division title.
Those last 10 games included overtime wins against Detroit, Montreal, and Tampa Bay as well as one-goal wins against an upstart Anaheim team and Florida. Of those 10 games, Toronto only outshot its opponent twice. The signs were there, but no one had realized it yet.
Toronto had finally bought into Berube’s vision.
The kicker? It was working.
The players
Through three games against the Ottawa Senators, the culmination of those 10 games has arrived in stunning fashion. Three games, three wins. Despite two of the games going to overtime, and Ottawa dominating the shot category, there was never a doubt for even a second in my mind that this team could finish it off.
I first want to give the players credit.
Under Berube, every player on the ice is a nastier version of their previous selves. William Nylander in Games 1 and 2 brought that extra edge. John Tavares and Auston Matthews were crashing into players against the boards.
That third line of Lorentz–Laughton–Jarnkrok looks the best of any playoff third line in recent Leafs memory, constantly winning the puck back on the forecheck and getting a cycle started.
Anthony Stolarz has exuded calm and fire at the same time in the crease, deftly turning away perimeter shots while also finding the time to hack Ridly Greig to pieces.
The super Berube buy-in
While the team buy-in has been apparent all across the ice, the moment I knew this team had fully bought in was early in Game 2. Game 1 was impressive, no doubt, but Toronto has had impressive blowout victories in playoff games before.
It was after the Leafs had taken a quick early lead against Ottawa in Game 2, and the Sens were starting to tilt the ice as Toronto collapsed to defend their lead. After an extended shift, the Leafs flung the puck towards the neutral zone to get a change.
Marner, coming back to the half line to support his defenceman, tries to tip the puck but gets a two-handed push to the back of the head from Zub. In previous years, Marner probably would’ve shrugged it off, barked at a linesman, and headed off for a change. As Sheldon Keefe once said, “Our power play is our deterrent.”
Not this iteration of the Leafs. There’s no “just take it.” There’s a new identity this group has: you give as good as you get, and it’s not just a select few. It’s the entire team. As Zub turns to go retrieve the puck, Marner turns around and gives Zub a nasty cross-check to the lower back before hustling off for a change.
Berube has gotten this Leafs team to do something no other iteration of themselves has been able to do: Start on time. Defend the net front. Make life difficult for the other team. Don’t wilt under pressure. Thrive in it.
The Leafs’ rebuilt blueline has thrown themselves into the fray to block shots, tie up bodies and sticks, to make Stolarz’s job as easy as possible.
Especially against Ottawa, who employ a heavy shot and retrieval style offence, being able to block shots and force them to shoot from far range without screens in front has allowed Toronto to disrupt Ottawa’s offensive rhythm.
Ottawa constantly wants to set up the point shot one timer when they’re set up in the offensive zone, but Toronto’s forwards are consistently forming a three-man wall up top to force a shot block or a pass back to the flank.
Unspoken has also been Berube’s willingness to let players get through rough stretches of their game. Berube has given more rope to guys like Nick Robertson and Pontus Holmberg than Keefe ever did in his tenure as Leafs head coach.
Robertson played almost as many games this year under Berube as he did the previous TWO under Keefe. Holmberg has also been moved up in the lineup and given a real run in that elevated role instead of the classic two-game experiment Keefe used to run.
Most importantly, while much of the fanbase was salivating at the idea of finding a replacement for Simon Benoit at the deadline (myself included), Craig Berube stood by the player. The player has repaid his coach’s faith in him by playing exceptional hockey down the stretch while the team was down McCabe and Tanev for stretches before channelling some magic in both playoff overtime periods.
Final Thoughts
Maybe Berube’s system of opportunistic scoring and staunch defence of the middle of the ice is working so well because of Ottawa’s complete lack of finishing. Maybe Toronto’s power play is flourishing because the Senators’ penalty kill strategy is so ridiculously passive. Maybe this system won’t work as well against a Florida or Tampa.
We won’t truly know for sure until that test arrives. What I do know is there’s something to be said about an even-keeled coach who has the gravitas to get a group of players to fully buy into his vision. A coach who, before the series even started, began gamesmanship with the media instead of starting on the back foot. A coach who, for once, allows fans to feel like the other team’s coach is the one who’s out of his depth.
The Leafs may not win the Cup this year, but if they lose, they’ll go down playing their style of game. Not the style that the other team forced them to play. That alone makes them a far different team than any previous iteration of themselves. It makes them dangerous. That gives me hope.
We’re back in Ottawa Saturday night. Let’s wrap this one up.
Go Leafs Go.
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