Trust
There’s an old saying I remember learning back in elementary school.
“Trust is hard to earn, but easy to lose.”
After winning their first-round series against Ottawa and rattling off two straight wins on home ice against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers, you’d think the Toronto Maple Leafs had gone a long way in earning the trust of their fanbase.
“It’s different this time.”
“You can believe in us.”
Then, the team unceremoniously blew a lead in Game 3, failed to capitalize on a Joseph Woll masterclass in Game 4, and was unceremoniously dominated and torn to shreds in front of their fans at home in Game 5.
Just like that, the trust and faith the team had spent eight games building amongst the fanbase shattered, as ghosts from playoff runs past rose from their graves to terrorize a broken fanbase.
“Auston Matthews is the only 400-goal scorer in NHL history to not have recorded a goal in the second round of the playoffs.”
“Mitch Marner has one shot in his last three games.”
“The bottom-six are incapable of providing an offensive punch when the stars go silent.”
Then, as only this team and this mercurial group of players can do, they flipped the script on its head just one game later in a win-or-go-home Game 6.
Auston Matthews bucked his cold streak on a drag-and-release wrister through Bobrovsky’s pads, and the much-maligned Bobby McMann found the wily vet Max Pacioretty backdoor off the rush.
A masterclass in defensive structure allowed Toronto to frustrate Florida. When it was all said and done, the Leafs left the Sunshine State with a tidy, no-frills, two–zero victory.
Now Toronto faces its biggest challenge yet.
A boogeyman that, through nine years of the Matthews era, they have yet to shake loose from.
Game 7 is upon the Leafs
It’s almost fitting that in what could be the final act of the often talked about “Core Four”, they must face their final playoff demon one more time.
Every Leafs fan remembers these moments vividly.
2013–14 against Boston.
2017–18 against Boston.
2018–19 against Boston.
2020–21 against Montreal.
2021–22 against Tampa Bay.
2023–24 against Boston once again.
In the last nine years, the Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander-led Maple Leafs have played in five Game 7s. Despite exorcising their First Round demons, one final obstacle stubbornly remains.
With that final demon, lingers one last criticism:
“These guys don’t need to win, they just hate to lose.”
The criticism that when their backs are against the wall, when the weight of expectation to win the series fades into the background, they will play the best hockey in their playoff lives.
The moment, however, when that expectation returns in a winner-takes-all game, they’ll fold like a house of cards.
As Leafs fans worldwide began writing the eulogy for an exhilarating, yet painful era of Leafs hockey ahead of Game 6, the team dug deep once more and channelled their inner Geno Smith.
“They wrote us off, but we ain’t write back.”
There are still enough pages left in this book for these four to change the path of this story.
One path, where the hero triumphantly emerges from the belly of the whale, ready to carry on the fight.
The other, a silent chill, a rattle of the bones, as an era of Leafs hockey comes to a shuttered close. A story that leads its readers to wonder… what if?
Can this team find within themselves one more game? One more complete effort like Game 6?
I can’t answer those questions… the only ones who can are in the dressing room.
What I can do is take a deep dive into Game 6 and point out exactly what Toronto was able to execute, and how repeating those core principles will give them as good of a chance as anyone to beat Florida.
The positives of Game 6
First, I want to highlight the things Toronto did really well in this game. With any Berube system, it of course starts with the forecheck.
The Forecheck:
We can see, opposed to Florida’s crushing two–one–two forecheck, where the Panthers send two forecheckers in aggressively on both defencemen, with a passive F3 that rotates depending on what direction the puck goes, Toronto under Berube prefers a 1–2–2.
You can see in both screenshots I grabbed that Toronto wants to use their F1 to force Florida towards one half of the ice, the F2 to cover off the easy play up the boards, and the F3 to take away the pass towards the centre of the ice.
When Toronto was able to keep its players above the Panthers’ players, it allowed them to win pucks back in the offensive zone, kill plays in the neutral zone and force premature dump-ins, affording the Leafs’ defenders more time and space on retrievals.
On this play, Domi (who was amazing in Game 6) does an amazing job forcing Mikkola back towards the nearside as the F1. Jarnkrok as F2 quickly jumps in to seal off Mikkola’s outlet up the wall, and Ekman-Larsson creeps down to take away further space. The Leafs turn the puck over and get an extended shift in the Florida zone.
This discipline in neutral zone coverage was important for Toronto to keep Florida from getting dangerous rush opportunities. Many of Florida’s best scoring chances were not the result of the Panthers creating a scoring opportunity; rather, it was Toronto’s attention to detail that faded at times.
Look above, Holmberg is the F1, Tavares the F2, and Nylander is F3 (albeit doing a bit of a lazy job). Everyone is where they should be, and it looks like Florida is about to get bottled up at their own blue line.
The issue here is Rielly pinching in on the play, turning this 1–2–2 forecheck into a weird 2–2–1. A quick rim up the near boards gets past Tavares, clears the first two layers of the forecheck, and Brandon Carlo is left all alone to defend a Luostarinen–Marchand two-on-one, which yielded Florida one of its most dangerous chances of the game.
The Penalty kill is killing
Florida has handily won the special teams battle throughout the series, but Toronto’s penalty kill came up big for Toronto in Game 6. With the Leafs dealing once again with discipline issues early in the game, it was the penalty kill unit on back-to-back kills that got the Matthews line going, resulting in the Knies chance in tight.
Toronto’s penalty kill under Lane Lambert is a triangle and one, where the “one” (Marner in this case) tries to force the puck from the point towards one direction. The other forward takes away the slot, and Toronto’s defenders take away the net front.
To counter this, Florida uses a player behind the goal line to try to exploit the Leafs. When the puck goes behind the goal line, Toronto, as you can see above, collapses into a box. The idea is to quickly move the puck from side to side, and open up space up top for the power play to work with.
For a better understanding of this, Hockey Psychology on YouTube had a great video highlighting how the Los Angeles Kings used Andrei Kuzmenko in that “behind the net role” to expose the Oilers’ triangle and one penalty kill.
Toronto did a really good job countering this Panther adjustment. With Tanev being more aggressive attacking the Panther behind the net, it forces a slower rim along the boards to the far side winger. This allowed Toronto’s forwards more time to recover and set up the triangle and one formation.
The big thing as well was that Toronto’s forwards were much more communicative. Earlier in the series, Florida’s quick puck movement would confuse the Leafs forwards, who became unsure who was responsible for the slot and who was responsible for getting out to the point. The handoff between the duos of Matthews and Marner and Laughton and Lorentz was outstanding in Game Six.
How Toronto has handled Florida’s forecheck
Much has been made about Toronto’s defencemen having a hard time dealing with the forecheck and moving the puck out under pressure. Much of that is still true, and they’re simply just limitations this group of defencemen have. What was impressive, however, in Game 6, is how Toronto as a TEAM handled Florida’s forecheck.
The Panthers are very good at what they do. They rode this exact 2–1–2 forecheck to back-to-back Cup Final. Toronto’s work in the neutral zone in Game 6 did a lot to make life easier on their defencemen, but no matter what, Florida will win back some pucks and force mistakes with their forecheck.
What Toronto did in Game 6 was not allow Florida to punish these mistakes.
Toronto coughs the puck up here, and you can see immediately Laughton passes off Boqvist to Lorentz and instead heads to take away the middle of the ice. The puck makes its way to Boqvist at the point, but Lorentz can rotate to him easily from his coverage on Reinhart.
This screenshot is just a few seconds later, and you can see that while Florida was successful in winning back the puck, they’re stuck to the perimeter, and Toronto’s well-positioned with all five players back.
Another example here, Toronto loses the battle to Florida’s forecheckers, but Laughton and Benoit have secured the middle of the ice, there’s no quick slot chance coming with those guys there.
McCabe has a brutal turnover on this play, but again, Tavares takes away the slot pass to both Tkachuk and Bennett, and Tanev has the net front as a safety valve if it gets through.
Toronto able to defend Florida’s rushes
Toronto did a great job all night defending Florida’s rush opportunities. The Leafs dogged consistency in taking away the middle of the ice neutered the Panthers’ in-zone offence. Toronto applies a similar logic when defending odd-man rushes and scramble plays.
Rielly makes an unforced error on this play, trying to make a quick small-area pass to Tavares’ feet. Tavares is expecting a chip up the ice and is trying to get going, which allows Luostarinen to pick it off and give Florida a dangerous chance going the other way. Luckily for Toronto, Benoit does a great job covering the slot area and levies Marchand with a big hit to negate the scoring threat.
You can see in all three of these screenshots, Toronto’s consistency in bottling up the inside and a lack of net driving from Florida’s off-puck forwards contributed to a lot of perimeter-centric shots.
The result of all of this?
Just three slot shots from Florida in the entire game. The least amount any team in these playoffs have allowed in a game.
A near-perfect performance that requires an encore
This performance from Toronto is needed again in Game 7.
- An aggressive, organized and communicative penalty kill that takes away time and space from Florida
- A disciplined forecheck that doesn’t cheat to try to create offence
- A commitment from the centres to take away the middle of the ice, negating high-danger scoring chances from Florida’s forecheck
Toronto rode this recipe and a magical moment from its captain to a Game 6 victory.
Sprinkle in some success from the power play in Game 7 and another tidy Joseph Woll performance… and maybe… just maybe this haunted hockey city can finally, truly beleaf once again.
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