Leafs knock out Carey Price with four-goal first period in potential playoff preview at ACC,
This, it appears, is simply a solid hockey club, a big, physical team with strong penalty killing, efficient netminding and enough youth to imagine this might be a group built for successful seasons beyond this one.
Nobody’s talking Stanley Cup here. There are elements missing, and probably insufficient experience, and the way in which Randy Carlyle’s team manages to get outshot almost every night and still emerge with victories does make one wonder how this will translate into post-season competition.
But there’s nothing fragile about this team, nothing suggesting it’s all happening with smoke and mirrors.
Just hard hockey night after night, grinding hockey, with a few finishers and skill types up front to supply more than enough goals. Drama? Not much of that. Just a steady drumbeat of effort.
A decision was made in January when this season started to use key parts of the Toronto Marlies roster that went on a long playoff run last spring to supply some of the ingredients that were missing on the parent club last season, and that has proved to be a smart choice.
Blue-and-White disease? Hasn’t been spotted since Ron Wilson left without saying a sarcastic goodbye.
Jake Gardiner, on the basis of a strong game against the Canadiens, is the latest indication of a team culture in which doing what is asked is what gets a player ice time, not freelancing and individuality. Meanwhile, if Leaf management wanted to make lots of noise about possible goalkeeping upgrades around the trade deadline in part to test James Reimer’s ability to handle the buffeting winds of playing goal in Toronto, he has delivered a strong indication that he is more than up to the task. In the last 13 games, the Leafs have lost only one game in regulation, acquiring 20 of a possible 26 points along the way. It has been a workmanlike playoff drive that began precisely when many were predicting the collapse to commence, and it has been fuelled in recent days by superlative play from the team’s top players. Phil Kessel is on fire, and Tyler Bozak, if this is a salary drive, is making quite a case for himself. Dion Phaneuf, with a few more supportive veterans around him, is making those who once accused him of lacking the character to be a captain look like fools. Montreal, on Saturday, looked like a team still in a self-congratulatory mode after clinching a playoff berth 48 hours earlier against a shockingly bad Buffalo team, and the Leafs were more than happy to take advantage. The home team got a beauty off the stick of Bozak early and jumped out to a somewhat undeserved 4-1 lead in the first period, undeserved in the sense they hardly dominated play but capitalized on shoddy Habs goaltending, with Carey Price yanked after allowing three goals on four shots in less than 11 minutes of playing time. By the third, there was little sign of a taste for all-out combat from the Montrealers, understandable, perhaps, but probably disconcerting as well for head coach Michel Therrien, who has the job of keeping his team sharp and focused over the next two weeks of relatively meaningless games. The Leafs, on the other hand, have more work to do, but 51 points in the hip pocket with 14 still available should be a comfortable position from which to operate. The conversation surrounding the Leafs, it’s clear, has changed. It’s not always a Picasso on a nightly basis, but guts and effort and sturdiness have made more than a few teams beloved in these parts. This team isn’t beloved. Not yet. But it has surely become respected.