LEAFS INSIDE
Feschuk: Why I picked the Leafs to knock off the Capitals,
I’m picking the Maple Leafs to win their first-round playoff series against the Washington Capitals for a lot of reasons — for one, possibly because I’m a desperate and nearly penniless sports bettor who also had Jordan Spieth in the green jacket, Duke in the Final Four and Hillary in the White House.
Favourites? Right now they’re not my favourite.
So I’m picking the Leafs, not because I know they’re going to win, but because I know this: The idea that the Capitals are prohibitive, can’t-lose overdogs — the idea that they ought to be considered a Cup-or-bust outfit that will hoist Lord Stanley’s mug or be deemed a failure — ignores much of what we’ve learned in recent history.
Yes, the Capitals are the league’s best team as measured by regularseason record, winning the Presidents’ Trophy for the third time in the Alex Ovechkin era. But we should know by now that the Presidents’ Trophy is to playoff success what the president’s Twitter account is to cool-headed statesmanship — not often synonymous.
Eleven teams have won the Presidents’ Trophy since the lockout that killed the 2004-05 season. Only two of those 11 have won the Stanley Cup. That’s an 18-per-cent conversion rate when it comes to turning the league’s best record over 82 games into a championship in the salary-cap era. That’s not so great.
Less great? Four times in the past 11 seasons, the team with the NHL’s best regular-season point total has been eliminated in the first round.
“It really is hard to explain,” said Leafs veteran Brian Boyle, speaking of the NHL’s penchant for firstround Goliath-smashing. “Sometimes the eighth seed really isn’t the eighth seed. Maybe they had some injuries or made some trades. Teams change. Teams grow. Young teams get better.”
None of that proves anything, of course. But it does strongly suggest the young-and-getting-better Maple Leafs aren’t as massive a long shot as some would have you believe.
“You’ve seen teams that are as good (as the Capitals), as veteran, as experienced, crumble before. It happens,” Connor Carrick, the ex-Capitals defenceman now playing for Toronto, was saying Wednesday. “That’s hockey. It’s a hard game. One thing can change a series. An injury. A call. One game . . .” One game. Game One. And imagine what happens if the Maple Leafs find a way to win. Let’s say Toronto’s defensive corps rises to the challenge. Let’s say Toronto’s young guns get their “five a night,” as Leafs coach Mike Babcock sometimes likes to brag. Let’s say Martin Mar- incin, who’ll be in the lineup for the first time in about a month replacing the still-injured Nikita Zaitsev, doesn’t turn out to be the liability some feel he can be. Or even if Marincin does turn out to be the rusty mess you’d expect, let’s say goaltender Frederik Andersen brings forth a game plucked from his best stuff to paper over the cracks. The Leafs have used that recipe many times this season. All of it’s doable and fathomable.
And yet, if the Leafs win, Washington’s hockey audience gets apoplectic. Suddenly all of Washington’s doubters will be in here-we-go-again mode, because the Ovechkin Capitals, for all their promise, have either lost in the first round or missed the playoffs in an amazing six of Ovechkin’s 11 previous seasons with the club. Lose another and the Twitterer-in-Chief might be giving his D.C. neighbours the Meryl Streep treatment. Overrated. Losers. Sad.
“Once you’re in the playoffs, all it takes is one game,” Carrick said. “You win one game, and now you see a crack. And you understand, ‘OK, if I can just carbon-copy that three more times . . .’ ”
Mike Babcock has spent time this week talking about the great Red Wings team he coached back in 2005-06 — a team that won a league-best 58 regular-season games before it was bounced in the first round by the Edmonton Oilers. Babcock has spoken about how expectations can produce the “pucker factor.” That’s “pucker,” as in “to become constricted,” or “to shrivel.” That’s no doubt part of what’s happened to the Presidents’ Trophy-winning teams that have lost in the first round.
So there’s the pucker factor. And then there’s the puck-stopper factor. That Babcock-coached Red Wings team was captained by Steve Yzerman and stacked with Hall of Famers, among them Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, Chris Chelios and Nick Lidstrom. And yet it was Oilers goaltender Dwayne Roloson who proved to be the most important player in the series.
The 2008-09 San Jose Sharks finished first overall, but they couldn’t finish around the net occupied by Anaheim goalie Jonas Hiller, who put up a .957 save percentage and two shutouts in that toppling.
The Presidents’ Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks of 2011-2012 were out-Quicked, with L.A. Kings goalie Jonathan Quick allowing just eight goals against in five games.
And the 2009-10 Capitals that had the NHL’s best record and exited in the opening round; Montreal’s netminder Jaroslav Halak and his .939 series save percentage made that happen.
That’s not to say something like it is going to happen here, but why couldn’t Andersen join that group?
The difference for the Capitals, six years on, is that their own goaltender, Braden Holtby, has so far proven to be a superior playoff performer, too. Still, hockey is fleeting and ever-changing. Last year the Leafs finished last overall. This year they’ve got a chance to eliminate first overall. That they’ve travelled such a distance in a matter of 12 months tells you everything you need to know about the thinness of the margins in this business.
That’s not to say anybody actually knows what’s going to happen, other than some random happening you probably can’t foresee. When nothing’s certain, everything’s foreseeable — even the Maple Leafs moving on to the second round. Don’t bet on it for anything other than recreational purposes, of course.
But don’t dismiss it as impossibility, either.