Young Leafs find benefits from an AHL playoff run

The leagues might be different, but the post-season experiences are similar

When it comes to facing elimination in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the youngsters on the Toronto Maple Leafs obviously don’t have much by way of experience.

But it’s not like they haven’t played in big games. Big, of course, being a relative term.

A group of them — William Nylander, Kasperi Kapanen, Connor Brown, Zach Hyman and Connor Carrick — say they are drawing from their experience with the American Hockey League’s Toronto Marlies last year, when they went to the Eastern Conference final. Mitch Marner won a Memorial Cup last year with the London Knights. Auston Matthews had a season in Switzerland’s top professional league.

“The thing is, playoff series are long,” Brown said. “You can’t get discouraged by a bad period, or a bad shift, or a bad game. You’ve got to be able to get up and get going. Each game is different. Teams will come with different energy and drive.”

Neither the Maple Leafs nor Capitals had a formal practice on Saturday, on the eve of Game 6 at the Air Canada Centre. The Capitals need one more win to advance.

“We’re facing elimination,” Nylander said. “You prepare like any other game. You want to be ready, and to be dialled in . . . It’s good for us to be able to learn to play in the playoffs. It’s a big step for us.”

Playing an elimination game is the next step for the youngsters, although the Leafs were so close to missing the playoffs that the stretch drive felt like one elimination game after another.

“It helps having played through that,” Nylander said. “Trying to get into the playoffs, we had to win games . . . You’re still trying to do what you’ve been doing throughout the regular season.”

Nylander says he noticed the differ- ence in the pace of play, that it’s “a step up, better, faster, more desperate hockey . . . There is less space. Some plays you’d make (in the regular season), you’re not able to make.”

“Every shift, in every game, is so important,” Kapanen said. “You have to be 100 per cent in every game.”

Kapanen had an overtime winner in Game 2 that looked very much like an overtime winner he scored for Finland over Russia in the 2016 world junior championship. And he says last year’s AHL experience, when he had eight points in14 games, has helped.

“Playoffs in any league are huge,” Kapanen said. “I was very grateful to be on that good team. I learned a lot from that. I’ve got to try to bring it to this league.”

Carrick has seen his ice time this series cut as Leafs coach Mike Bab- cock has shortened his bench. Last year, he was one of the Marlies’ top defenceman and their top playoff scorer.

“You definitely don’t want a game, a shift, or a series to go by where you think to yourself: ‘I could have played that guy tighter’, ‘I could have done more on that play’, or ‘I could have done more in a situation,’ ” Carrick said. “You’ve got to find a way to calm down when things are jacked up . . . It’s more of a chess match when you’re playing a team seven times.”

Babcock said all the experiences bode well for the future of the team and the careers of his young players.

“It helps your whole career,” Babcock said. “That, to me, is why these kids step right in. You go to the under-17 (tournaments), you go the under-18, you go to the world juniors . . . and you advance way quicker than it used to be.”