Will the tough get Leafs going?
Toronto will still need some bite from the top of the roster to compete with Florida and Boston
It felt like an underwhelming summer of signings for the Maple Leafs.
A three-year contract for aging tough guy Ryan Reaves was a bit of a head-scratcher. One-year deals for Tyler Bertuzzi and Max Domi, a couple of agitators with some skill, seemed like placeholders while GM Brad Treliving got a feel for what his team was about.
And a bet on right-handed defenceman John Klingberg only paid off because he got hurt and the Leafs could use the ensuing salary-cap relief to carry a full 23-man roster, including three goalies.
But as the Leafs get closer to the playoffs and a first-round match against either the Boston Bruins or Florida Panthers, it’s worth noting that Reaves, Bertuzzi and Domi have all raised their games, inserting their nasty side into the DNA of the team. Throw into that mix defenceman Simon Benoit, an underthe-radar summer signing who has become a fan favourite with big hits and the occasional fight.
The Leafs’ reputation is one of a team that has been notably soft, easy to play against, leaders of the no-hit league. Former GM Kyle Dubas was drawn to defencemen who could move the puck quickly, and playmaking forwards. Size didn’t matter. That’s what the analytics told him.
He was right to a degree. Puckmoving defencemen and fast, playmaking forwards can dominate an 82-game regular season. But come playoff time, hockey changes. Teams defend better, making it harder for playmakers. Teams get to know each other’s tendencies, and they get to hate each other. A head-to-head battle over seven games can get nasty. The Leafs only lasted five last year against a tougher Florida Panthers lineup.
The Leafs haven’t been able to get nasty, at least not without getting suspended, as Nazem Kadri and Michael Bunting found out. Nasty is not within their DNA. They have not been masters of the dark arts. Cross-checks to the head are going to get called every time.
Dubas began to realize this and started importing toughness via mid-season trades: Jake McCabe and Luke Schenn last year, Ilya Lyubushkin and Kyle Clifford in years past.
But adding toughness mid-season is not the same as being tough to play against all season. That’s the kind of team Treliving wants: big and tough as well as fast and skilled.
Reaves fought in the first two games of the season, trying to send a signal the Leafs wouldn’t be pushed around. But his early-season struggles muted the message. It didn’t help that Bertuzzi and Domi also struggled, their ability to “send messages” to opponents hurt by their inability to get enough ice time to do so.
When Brad Marchand ran Timothy Liljegren in November, causing a high-ankle sprain, and no one responded, it was like Dubas’s noheart Leafs were back.
“I hated everything about it. And I addressed it,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said then.
It has taken a while, but the nasty side of the Leafs has grown since, aided by the growth in the games of Bertuzzi, Domi and Reaves.
All three players have been midseason or trade-deadline acquisitions by playoff-bound teams. Treliving valued having them from the start of the season, and now has added some more size and toughness in repatriating Lyubushkin and acquiring Joel Edmundson.
“I think Brad’s done a good job,” says former player and manager Brian Lawton, now an adviser to the analytics company Sportsdigita. “He had a good thought, ‘This team has to be tougher.’ I don’t think there’s any doubt that Brad has made a concerted effort and has continued to go with that theme.
“He has attempted to do what the Leafs haven’t really done that well in the past, which is to improve and strengthen that defence. Just adding Lyubushkin and Edmundson is big. I like what they’ve done.”
A recent rematch with the Bruins saw how far the Leafs had come in terms of team toughness. Bertuzzi and Reaves both got into fights. The team now has 20 fighting majors. They had 14 all of last year.
“We made a pact in the locker room, no matter what happens, we’re gonna stick together and fight,” Domi said after that game in Boston. It should be noted the Leafs lost that one. How tough they were, at least in that particular outcome, didn’t play a role.
The team’s critics — and they are legion — would say the team’s toughness is a mirage, or superficial, that real team toughness starts at the top, with players like Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk and Boston’s Marchand, and filters down through the lineup.
“Do I believe they’re tougher than they were in the past? Absolutely,” says former NHL defenceman, Aaron Ward, now working in broadcasting and the analytics field with Sports Media Technology Corp. “Do I believe that’s positioning them to compete with the top teams in the East? I still feel like they’re a tier below.”
The Leafs’ Core Four have never been known to throw a punch, each a worthy Lady Byng candidate. Captain John Tavares is the most likely to scuffle, hanging out as he does in the crease, but is doesn’t go further than that. Auston Matthews is more likely to laugh at or mock the player trying to engage him in a fight. Mitch Marner and William Nylander are particularly talented at avoiding getting hit altogether, never really needing to retaliate.
Defenceman Morgan Rielly, who is the soul of team, was a Lady Byng candidate until he cross-checked Ottawa’s Ridly Greig in the face for Greig’s slapshot into an empty net.
That’s the moment many on the team point to as a rallying cause.
“It was a real wake-up call for our team to get real serious about winning and taking care of games and rallying around the moment,” Keefe said.
They have been better since. But it still might not be enough.
“I’m not taking away from Toronto, from what they are trying to do,” Ward said. “But as you watched this season play itself out, you know unquestionably how Florida played in the regular season is going to be that on steroids in the playoffs.”