RECENT YEARS SHOW HOW TO WIN A CUP WITH ORDINARY DEFENCE
The trick: Take control in the neutral zone and championship magic can happen
The consensus about the Toronto Maple Leafs: You can’t win the Stanley Cup with that defence.
The consensus may be wrong. Truth is, you can win with this defence. The Pittsburgh Penguins did that two years ago, winning the Cup with a defence less capable than the current Leafs crew. The Washington Capitals won the Cup last June with a top half that may be stronger than the Leafs top half, but overall, the defencemen on both teams are rather similar.
The NHL is changing. The game is changing.
“You’re not seeing anybody standing in front of his net, cross-checking anybody anymore,” said Ron Hainsey, who was part of the Pittsburgh Cup winning defence in 2017 and now works in the first pair for the Leafs alongside Morgan Rielly.
“It’s a different game. I like what we’ve got. We’ve got the two 50-point guys (Rielly and Jake Gardiner). How many teams have that? (Answer: Two — Minnesota and Nashville) That takes care of the offence and the power play. And I think Z (Nikita Zaitsev) can play that game also.”
The definition of a defenceman has been altered significantly. The big play for today’s defenceman: First pass ability.
“I want to break out better,” said Rielly. “That’s one of my goals. When you watch the best defencemen in the league, that’s what they do so well. On breakout, they’re first time, every time.”
And how does this Leafs defence stack up?
Pittsburgh won its last Cup with a first pair on defence of Hainsey and Brian Dumoulin and a second pair of Olli Maatta and either Justin Schultz or Trevor Daley. Their play was wonderfully mixed and matched by the terrific coach, Mike Sullivan.
Washington won the most recent Cup with a first pairing of John Carlson and Matt Niskanen, followed by a second pairing of Dmitry Orlov and Michal Kempny. The first pair is a good one. The second pair, not so much. Orlov is Washington’s Gardiner. He does magnificent things, then he does Jake things.
Yet throughout the playoffs, coach Barry Trotz moved his pairs around enough and in the Stanley Cup Final there was a wide gap between the Caps’ play and that of the Vegas Golden Knights, with their six-man group chosen from the expansion draft. Vegas had knocked out teams with Drew Doughty, Brent Burns and Dustin Byfuglien in the first three rounds.
This is where Leafs coach Mike Babcock comes in. It’s not just about his defence and how he handles them. It’s more about team defence and how the Leafs play it. The Leafs have to be better and more responsible in their own end. That’s part defence, part forwards and a whole lot of coaching and decision-making.
The Capitals protected their defence in the playoffs by very efficient play in the neutral zone. Vegas ran out of answers in the five-game Cup Final that tilted in Washington’s favour.
The year before, Pittsburgh so insulated the thinnest defence in Cup winning history by simplifying the game. The Penguins owned the neutral zone. Zone time in the Pens end was limited.
The Leafs must be better in the neutral zone in order to take the step from playoff team to real contender. Making the playoffs is nice. Winning is better. Winning a few rounds even better than that.
The Leafs begin this season with gigantic expectations. That’s as a team. But the defencemen aren’t deaf. They know what’s being said about them. They know the overriding belief around the NHL is this six-man unit isn’t good enough.
But the last few years tell a different story.
The Leafs begin this season with Rielly and Hainsey on the first pair, followed by Gardiner and Zaitsev.
Rielly is an upgrade over Dumoulin. Hainsey is Hainsey. The Leafs’ first unit is stronger than the Pittsburgh first unit
from 2017.
They’re not necessarily the quality of Carlson and Niskanen but Rielly has the ability to take another step.
Carlson led all NHL defencemen in points last season with 68 tallies, 32 of them coming on the power play. Rielly scored 52 points, up from 27 points the year before. Sixty points might be a possibility for him this season, although he doesn’t talk much about numbers.
Sounding so hockey-like, he cares about wins and how the team does and how he and Hainsey fare as a pairing.
And he also sees that after five seasons and still at the rather tender age of 24, he’s the age of a kid but playing the role of a veteran. There is another step or three for him to take. Hainsey’s 37. He is what he is. Zaitsev can’t possibly play as badly as he did last season and if he continues, he’ll have to be replaced.
And the third pairing is rather fascinating: Rookie Igor Ozhiganov is 25, one year older than the veteran Rielly, but experienced having played five seasons in the KHL. Both he and Travis Dermott may be able to play higher in the lineup over time.
That gives Babcock options over 82 games. He has to adjust slightly from past years with his approach to the team. They can’t be as loose in their own end as they have been. They have to win more loose puck battles on the boards. The forwards have to be more engaged defensively. And they have to cut down on shots on goal against and scoring chances.
The Leafs were 12th in goals allowed last season, better than the Cup champs, who were 16th. The year before, Toronto finished 22nd in goals against, close to the 17th-place Penguins. Time was, you had to be Top 10 to win championships.
Times change.