The coach’s gift will have to wait
Mike Babcock says it’s a good year when his team is playing on his birthday. The Leafs are inching closer but they’re not there yet
“I usually used to say, if you’re (still) playing on my birthday (on April 29), you’ve had a good year, that means you’re starting the third round. I haven’t seen a third round since I can’t remember how long. I miss you media guys so much, we’re going to play longer this spring.”— Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock, Sept. 14, 2017.
BOSTON— There are things to fix, but there are always things to fix. The Toronto Maple Leafs season ended in Boston Wednesday night with a free fall at the end; four third-period goals by the Bruins in a Game 7 the Leafs led after two periods. It was a competitive series against one of the best teams in hockey; of course, we said that last year, too, when the Leafs played five overtime games in their six-game loss to Washington. April 29th isn’t the third round anymore; it’s the second. But the Leafs didn’t get there.
And you can still be optimistic about this team. In fact, it’s hard to be anything but.
“The team’s on its way up, competing with the top teams,” veteran defenceman Ron Hainsey said after Game 7, when asked what the younger Leafs could take away from this playoff series. “I think there’s still a level that we can get to here, that this group can get to ... We showed some good stuff coming back after a terrible first two games in here, we showed some good stuff to get back in the series. But there’s a little bit higher notch we’ve got to get to, up and down the roster, in order to win against — this is, I don’t know a top two, three, four, five team. We’re on the edge of that ... but there’s a little bit more to get to.”
Hainsey won a Stanley Cup in Pittsburgh a year ago; he knows what he is looking at. This series had so many things you could point to that didn’t work for Toronto. Game 1 was a mess. How were they not ready for Game 1, in a season where there was nothing but time to prepare for the final two months of the season? (Those two facts may be related.) Nazem Kadri’s suspension.
The penalty kill in Game 2, the inability to finish in Game 4, the mistakes and goaltending in Game 7. The playoffs are a stress test. Some parts of the machine failed.
And they were still 20 minutes from toppling Boston on the road. This franchise puts a lot of stock in big-game performance — Brendan Shanahan is a fan of the idea — but it also understands sample sizes, and there will have to be a decision on the balance there for players like Jake Gardiner, who is a good player who had an awful Game 7.
“We showed some good stuff coming back after a terrible first two games.” RON HAINSEY LEAFS DEFENCEMAN
The Leafs didn’t play their best hockey, didn’t have their best players, didn’t always ice their optimal lineups, and came close to beating the Bruins.
“It sucks, but we’ve got to take the positives out of it,” Kadri said.
“Obviously we would have loved to advance but for the future we’re going to be a team to be reckoned with. We’ll be back in this situation.”
They will, but some things need to be fixed. The Leafs were in that game, but there was a reason the Bruins won: They applied more pressure, more consistently.
Gardiner blew some tires, but the Leafs were also nonexistent offensively to start the third period.
The Leafs tried to be safe, and as a result they weren’t safe enough.
As Kadri put it, the lesson was “just to keep applying that pressure.”
“It’s just a maturity thing,” he said. “Hockey is a game of momentum swings and you’ve got to be able to withstand them, especially on the road. Everything’s not going to be pretty. They were just able to get to more pucks than us and put them in the net.”
The Leafs simply couldn’t control enough of the play. That’s both personnel and philosophical, and it’s up to Babcock and the front office — whoever is in charge of it — to fix it.
There is solid talent at decent prices, and young stars that need to be signed, and maybe better used. Only Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon scored more points per minute, but Matthews was 71st among forwards in total minutes per game in the regular season, and 22nd in evenstrength minutes. His wingers by series end were Zach Hyman and Connor Brown. They are honest, hard-working players, but it’s not exactly Bergeron between Marchand and Pastrnak.
It’s similar to how Mitch Marner was a 92-point-pace player after he was finally given better linemates.
Matthews and Marner led the forwards in playoff ice time and they are the core of this team, along with Nylander, Morgan Rielly, Kadri, Frederik Andersen, and whatever kids prove, like Kasperi Kapanen, that they deserve NHL time. How the team plays around that core, and how it leverages its cap space and its roster, will be a challenge.
But the base of this team is good enough to be what it thinks it can be.
There are things to fix, but there should be fixable problems. The Leafs have the core of a team that can play past Babcock’s birthday. Now they have to make it work.