Cox on why Leafs can’t lose,
And the perfect season continues. With no unhappy ending in the offing.
No, no. Not perfect as in 1972 Miami Dolphins 14-0. Not like the 23 men who have thrown a perfect game in the major leagues.
Lord knows, the Maple Leafs were anything but perfectly undefeated or even close this season. They lost 42 hockey games, two more than they won, a nicely hidden little fact that goes somewhat unnoticed in the Land of (Sometimes) Three-Point Games.
The perfection of the Leaf season has more to do with the narrative. Take a bunch of young gems, weld them on to the league’s worst team, watch the kids soar and the team do the same, find a Danish goalie to cover up most of the mistakes and then make the playoffs on the last weekend of the season for only the second time in 13 years, and by defeating the defending Stanley Cup champions.
Sigh. Storybook stuff, huh? Everybody overachieves, everybody’s smart, everybody looks good, from owners to executives to coaches to players.
Did anybody not come up smelling like roses in the Leaf organization? Can’t think of one. The departed Jhonas Enroth, I suppose, or maybe Frankie Corrado, who never had much of a chance to succeed. Otherwise, even the training staff had a big year keeping this squad impeccably healthy, for the most part.
Now, add on to all of this a firstround playoff date with the Washington Capitals.
Forget the dismay that the Leafs have to tackle such a strong opponent in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Don’t worry about missing a chance at the Battle of Ontario. Getting the Caps in the first round is just, well, perfect, at least for a team that is in the stage of development that the Leafs are right now.
They can’t lose. Well, if they drop four games by a combined 44-1, sure, they’d look pretty bad. Or if this got to Game 7 (you never know) and they led 4-1 with less than 10 minutes to play and still failed to advance. Deja vu, right?
Those would be the nightmare scenarios, the unthinkable. Otherwise, Mike Babcock’s crew can’t lose in this collision with Washington.
The Caps are acknowledged as the best team in the Eastern Conference, and maybe the league. If they wipe the ice with the Leafs and win four straight, it will be simply because that’s what they’re supposed to do before getting on with more challenging matters, such as taking on the winner of the Pittsburgh-Columbus series.
If the Leafs make it close, say, take the series to six games, they’ll receive kudos all around for playing well over their heads. Their day will come, the storyline will go, and wait until Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Downtown Connor Brown and the rest of the lads gain some experience, then look out NHL, right?
The Leafs can win or win in this series. Only the Caps, really, have anything to lose here, and won’t it be fun to watch Alex Ovechkin and his buddies squirm if the Leafs somehow manage to make this more of a series than most expect it to be? The Caps have done nothing but disappoint in the post-season for a decade, always coming up short, always revealing a major vulnerability, and always with Ovechkin failing to come up big.
Ovechkin’s actually becoming less and less productive in the spring as his career moves along. In his first 43 NHL playoff games, he had 30 goals, or .70 per game. In his most recent 33 playoff matches, he’s only managed 11 goals, or .33 per game. The Caps have lost eight of 13 playoff series since Ovechkin arrived as team saviour.
So they’ll spend the next few days denying they have the pressure of expectations on their shoulders, and D.C. media will dutifully report their words because that’s what we do. They say it, we print it, no matter how cliche. But of course the Caps come in knowing how often they’ve thrown up on their skates in big moments in recent years. Last spring, unable to find a way to put pucks past Michal Neuvirth, the Caps almost choked away a firstround series to Philly, the same Flyers team that couldn’t even come close to making the playoffs.
So the Caps are surely vulnerable. But you’re not hearing that very much because they had such a strong season and look so sturdy at every position, which is why nobody gives the Leafs much of a chance.
Perfect. The other Canadian teams — Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton — are in very different situations. The Flames and Oilers are slight underdogs, but their fans have high hopes. The Habs and Sens might be slight favourites, depending on who’s making the bet. But in those four Canadian towns there will be medium to large disappointment if their teams don’t advance.
Toronto? Nope. Hey, we’re just happy to be here, right? If it had been Ottawa, well, there would be some, at least, calling for the Leafs to win, and significant disappointment if they didn’t. But the Caps? Well, gee, thanks for the invitation, Mr. Bettman, and we’ll try to eat too much at the buffet or get sloshed before we head home.
So sure, it’s the perfect scenario for the Leafs, and undoubtedly the last time this team as constructed by Brendan Shanahan and Co. will enjoy this kind of comfy win-win atmosphere. By next fall, there will be very real expectations for the first time in years, both of individuals and the team. Even this summer, there will be a great deal of scrutiny surrounding what the Leafs do, or don’t do. They’d be advised to have a more fruitful off-season than the Blue Jays, or there will be grumbling.
So, even as they prepare to take on Goliath, it’s a perfect conclusion to a perfect narrative for the Leafs. They don’t even have to be good with a slingshot to emerge as winners. Damien Cox is the co-host of Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. He spent nearly 30 years covering sports for The Star. Follow him @DamoSpin. His column appears Tuesday and Saturday.