LEAFS HAVE TO GRIT AND BEAR IT

Pierre Mcguire had just finished calling Colorado’s series-clinching win against Arizona when he spotted the player who might be an early candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy.

“I wonder what they’re thinking in Toronto right now when they see Nazem Kadri going through the handshake line,” said the NBC analyst. “Not sure it’s wise to run your team through analytics.”

For sure, it was a dig. And it seemed to be directed at Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas and his calculator-clutching staff, who had traded Kadri to the Avalanche presumably because he kept getting suspended in the playoffs for crossing the line. One year later, Kadri had a team-leading five goals and seven points as the Avalanche defeated the Coyotes 4-1 in their best-of-seven series. And he did it without getting suspended or even taking a single penalty.

It’s easy to suggest that had Dubas kept Kadri, then the Leafs might have advanced past the Columbus Blue Jackets in the qualification round and might still be playing today. Then again, it’s never that simple.

If anything, the decision to part ways with Kadri illustrates a philosophical fault with an organization that has gone four straight years without winning a playoff round.

It’s not just that the Leafs lack a player with Kadri’s unique blend of skill and strength. It’s that after spending the past two years saying goodbye to Connor Brown, Leo Komarov and Matt Martin, the Leafs don’t have anything resembling a physical edge.

“They chose to go a certain way with their roster,” Mcguire said in a phone interview Thursday.

Looking around at the teams that are still playing these days, it’s not hard to see which way leads to a Stanley Cup.

Skill only takes you so far in the playoffs. The Leafs have Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander, who combined for 120 goals and 266 points this season. But they don’t have a Kadri. They don’t have a Brendan Gallagher, who played Game 5 chirping the Flyers bench with a suspected broken jaw and a mouthful of blood. They don’t have Bo Horvat or J.T. Miller. They don’t have what Boston or St. Louis has or what Tampa Bay picked up.

They don’t have grit. They don’t push back. They had Jason Spezza dropping his gloves against Columbus. But with all due respect, when Spezza is your toughest player, you are not tough.

“At this time of year, hockey becomes a different type of game,” said Mcguire, who was an assistant coach with the Penguins team that won the Cup in 1992. “It really becomes a hardedged, amazingly intense and more times than not a physical battle. You still need to have supreme athletic ability. You still need to have top-end guys who are really driven offensively. But if you don’t have guys who can stabilize games and can create room for other players, then it becomes a problem.

“St. Louis plays a certain way, where they play ground and pound and forecheck aggressively. Vancouver does it another way. They do it with amazingly quick puck movements, but with bigger, brawnier guys who can get to the net. Brock Boeser is a big kid. Bo Horvat is a bit kid. Elias Pettersson is not big, but he’s long and rangy and he’s not shy.

“And then you bring in a guy like J.T. Miller and he creates room because he plays with bite and there’s an attitude to his game.”

It will be interesting to see if this changes, if Dubas reacts to the way that the Leafs were outmuscled and outworked against the Blue Jackets. If so, it comes with a warning sign.

After blowing a three-goal lead in a Game 7 loss to the Bruins in 2013, former Leafs GM Dave Nonis traded for Dave Bolland and then signed David Clarkson as a free agent. Both players came loaded with intangibles, which supposedly would surface come playoff time. The problem was the team never made it that far. Bolland played one, injury-plagued season in Toronto before getting moved to Florida, while Clarkson and his onerous contract were moved after he scored just 15 goals in two seasons.

In other words, it’s not easy finding a player who can do what Kadri does. The best available option in free agency might be Wayne Simmons, whose production has been steadily declining, or possibly trading for Columbus’s Josh Anderson, who missed most of the year after shoulder surgery.

At the same time, it might be worth the gamble.

After getting embarrassed against the Blue Jackets last year, Tampa Bay kept its core of Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point intact. But they augmented that skill by signing Pat Maroon, who had just won the Cup with St. Louis, and later traded for Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow.

“Look at how Tampa changed their roster,” said Mcguire. “You add Goodrow and Coleman and you’ve got a team that got pushed around and swept against Columbus last year, and all of a sudden they’re doing the pushing.”

Maybe that’s what the Leafs need. Maybe they need grit, toughness and intangibles. Maybe they need a Kadri. Maybe they need a different look.

After all, what we’ve seen so far just isn’t good enough.

“If you look at the teams that won or got to the final, there’s a similarity to all their rosters,” said Mcguire. “The eye test matters a lot.”