One Cup leads to another for Marlies
Nice long AHL playoff run important step in rebuild for Leafs-bound prospects
When the Maple Leafs’ season ended and everyone started thinking about how rosy the future looks, it was veteran Brooks Laich who painted perhaps the starkest picture of the steps that still need to be taken.
Sure, he said, things look promising because the Leafslooked good in a lot of one-goal games. But it’s easy to look good when you’re trying to catch the other team.
“The last 15 minutes of the game, you push for a goal,” said Laich, acquired from the Washington Capitals at the trade deadline. “It’s pretty easy to play. You play carefree, gunsa-blazing. You’re trying to score.
“Flip that: You’re up a goal? How do we play? That’s something different.”
And that’s where Laich made the link between the Leafs losing and the Marlies winning.
Impressed by the wide array of talent — including William Nylander, Connor Brown, Nikita Soshnikov, Zach Hyman — Laich said the Marlies’ pursuit of the Calder Cup, starting Saturday, will translate to the NHL next season.
“These guys are going to get used to playing when they’re expected to win, when it’s tough,” said Laich, “not just chasing a game. Chasing a game is easy — there’s no pressure.
“But playing with a lead, playing structured, playing smart . . . everything matters when you’re playing with the lead. That’s what they’re going to learn with the Marlies. That’s what they’re going to bring back.”
The top-seeded Marlies begin their AHL playoff journey in Bridgeport, Conn., on Saturday and Sunday, before the best-of-five series moves to Ricoh Coliseum the rest of the way.
Historically, the top seed has gone 14-4 when starting a best-of-five set on the road, 1-1 at home.
“Our goal here is to build an organization that can contend for a Stanley Cup,” said Marlies GM Kyle Dubas. “We’re years away from that, but this experience these young guys are going through, we hope when we get to that point with the Maple Leafs (that) they can draw back on this experience as the No. 1 seed.”
It’s true that a successful farm team can spark NHL success. Affiliates of the Kings, Stars, Red Wings, Lightning, Senators and Capitals are recent Calder Cup champions.
“I think it’s really important, as you’re building your team, that your young players taste winning and understand what it’s like to win, and get that feeling in them so they don’t want to lose,” said former NHL GM Neil Smith, now an NHL Network analyst. “They look at themselves as winners . . . Now those kids around the Marlies feel: ‘We’re going to lift the Leafs up next year to be a good team. We’re going to help them.’ ”
While with the Red Wings organization, Smith helped turn the Adirondack Red Wings into AHL champions in 1986 and 1989. The NHL Wings have made the Stanley Cup playoffs for 25 straight seasons.
“They can’t do it on their own,” said Smith. “It has to be upstairs, too. So when they get (to the Leafs), they’ve got Mike Babcock. We had Jacques Demers in coaching the team who told everybody: ‘We’re going to win, we’re going to win, we’re going to win.’ Then that happens.”
Laich warned his younger teammates, before they returned to the Marlies, that winning the Calder Cup won’t be easy. “You’re not going to go down there and run the show,” Laich said. “You’re not going16-0. . . . There is no other way to acquire that knowledge than to go right through it. For them, it’s a huge opportunity.”
Marlies winger Josh Leivo has taken Laich’s words to heart.
“We’ve got to be ready for every situation we’re in,” Leivo said. “That’s why they wanted us to stick together down here and win together, and hopefully bring us up together through the years and have that great chemistry and that great winning mentality.”