Rookies get crash course in playoff intensity
With up to 12 first-timers in Leafs’ lineup, Babcock says Capitals have all the pressure
Pucker up, Washington.
Leafs coach Mike Babcock is doing all he can to put the pressure on the Washington Capitals and take it off his young team as the two sides get ready for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoff series game Thursday. Babcock made sure everyone knows the Leafs, the second wild card in the East, are the underdogs while planting the seed that the Capitals have the higher expectations as the President’s Trophy winner.
“That ‘pucker factor’ is an unbelievable thing,” Babcock said. “Until you’ve been the best seed, until you have your whole city expecting, you don’t know what that’s like and how good . . . that is for the underdog.
“My first year in Detroit (the 200506 season), I’d never experienced anything like it and I couldn’t believe how we couldn’t skate or pass. So pressure’s a wonderful thing when you’re the underdog.”
That year in Detroit, Babcock’s Red Wings won 58 games and the President’s Trophy and lost to Edmonton in the first round. Previously, in Anaheim, his Ducks swept the higherseeded Wings. Anything can happen. “We are underdogs,” Babcock said. “ESPN, on their panel of experts, everyone on their team had us to miss the playoffs . . . I’ve been the underdog lots and won. I’ve been the Presidents’ Trophy winner and lost in the first round.”
So, no pressure, Toronto. Good thing too, because the Leafs could dress as many as 12 players who have no have NHL playoff experience.
To prepare, Babcock had the veterans on the team tell the youngsters in a team meeting before practice what the playoffs were like.
Matt Martin’s first Stanley Cup playoff game was in 2013 with the New York Islanders, a young group led by John Tavares, taking on a Stanley Cup favourite, the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was like no game he’d ever played before.
“They beat us 5-0 and then, quickly in Game 2, we were down 3-0. And we battled back and won,” said Martin. The Penguins won in six games.
“The emotion in the building is way higher. It’s really controlling your emotions and not letting the situation get away from you. There are big hits, and guys are going to get banged up. Things will happen that in the regular season you will take a lot of offence to, but you have to control your emotions . . . and understand it is a long playoff series. “You have to be disciplined.” It can take a game or two for a young team to adjust to the highoctane, high-intensity atmosphere of the playoffs. James van Riemsdyk was a rookie on a Flyers squad that rolled over New Jersey in 2010. The veterans on the team took him aside to let him know how things will be.
“Everyone can tell you what it’s like, but until you get out there, you don’t really know,” said van Riemsdyk. “For me it was good, I was on a team with so many veteran guys like Chris Pronger, Scott Hartnell, Danny Briere, Simon Gagne. We had all these veteran guys around that have been through it. It was a different sort of feeling.”
Rookie Mitch Marner was attentive Tuesday. “It’s hard to know what it’s going to be like until you get in that game,” the 19-year-old said. “Playoffs in the OHL are harder than the regular season so you kind of know the difference, even though it’s a different level now.
“You know it’s going to be a different pace of play, a different style, you just can’t get frustrated.”
The veterans think the kids are ready.
“I think a lot of the guys in here have experience in big games,” Martin. said “(Auston) Matthews was in the World Cup and played over in Switzerland. Marner has won the Memorial Cup. They understand how to play and thrive in big moments.”