The past two games for the Toronto Maple Leafs have looked nothing like their first six, when they were sharp, positionally sound, and presented a united front that seemed rock solid. Since the players haven’t changed, it’s reasonable to assume something in their psyche has.
Under a new coach, a player starts off by putting forth the “first date” version of themself. They clean things up, work their tail off, err on the side of what a coach would want from a player, and try to land a positive first impression that sticks.
Through training camp and on into the season, you can see a coach’s opinions start to crystallize, and they become evident in how a player is used. That means you’re watching your linemates, you’re watching how much ice time you get, and how much of it is on special teams.
After six games the Leafs’ star players apparently felt they’ve moved beyond the first impression stage, and seem to have all-too-quickly jumped straight to the “passing gas in front of the other person” phase.
That is to say: The Maple Leafs stunk in games seven and eight of the season.
Their details have been so bad, to a degree we haven’t seen from them in years. Thursday night they gave up three even-strength goals, and below I’ve cribbed one screenshot from each to talk about a detail that’s being missed.
From there, we’ll talk about what it all means, and the questions it raises.
1-0 Goal: Philip Broberg scores on a one-timer from the point
Obviously it’s a problem that Joseph Woll is screened here (if you’re going to try to block a point shot, you better block it), but Mitch Marner got sucked out of his defenceman’s shooting lane. The Leafs are 12th in blocked shots, but it’s almost all defencemen doing the blocking (among forwards, Auston Matthews and Steven Lorentz have 15 combined and the next highest forward has three).
While Jordan Kyrou was spinning in circles, Chris Tanev never actually lost him, and managed to keep him on the outside, even if it looked tenuous.
Marner’s job is to cover Broberg’s shooting lane, but he drifts towards the puck, and doesn’t keep himself between the potential shooter and the net.
3-1 Goal: Alexandre Texier shoots it in from the slot
There’s not a lot to love on this goal, but it starts with Matthews getting handcuffed by a puck in front when his goalie is stuck behind the net, so he seems content to muck it into the corner and deal with it out of harm’s way.
He and Jake McCabe then get in a puck battle, it kind of pops through McCabe’s legs, and the Blues’ F2 is able to get a handle on it. From there, I cannot make sense of why Marner is almost at the centre ice circle still moving away from the play when the puck is in the corner, as the “breakout” has been over for about five seconds by this time.
I’m not trying to be hard on Marner here — he and Matthews and William Nylander were all to blame at various times. But this is just strange hockey from a guy who’s been a good 200-foot player in the past.
Between Marner and Tanev – who could’ve been out a bit higher around the crease – they left an ocean of room in the slot. Marner was just hoping things would work out, rather than protecting the house if they didn’t. That’s the definition of a “detail” not being prioritized.
The team is now 22nd in shot attempts from the slot allowed off the cycle, which just means shots allowed “off the opposing team’s solid O-zone possession.”
4-1 Goal: Defence caught when Nylander hangs everyone out to dry
When your defencemen have slid into the offensive zone and left you the puck as the last man back, you’ve got to know there are numbers down low, and no help up high. Knowing the risk factor, this puck needs to be backhand-chipped past the defending forward off the boards, and then skated up on.
Yes, Nylander can do some special things, and you don’t want to curb those tools. But he has to learn when to use them — and it’s not when you’re the last guy back (we have seen this movie from him before). Again, this is a “hope” play, with no concern for the detail of “what happens if it doesn’t work out?”
So here we’ve got three goals against where the Maple Leafs’ best players are on the hook.
The question I’ve got is…
What comes next from Craig Berube?
The idea this season is that Berube is the “accountability coach,” the hard-ass who’s supposed to say “I don’t care who you are, if you don’t make the plays that benefit the team, you won’t play.”
And yet, after some terse words in the eighth game of the season, Nylander and Marner and Matthews all kept filing over the boards like nothing had happened at all.
Is it possible Berube so desired a better outcome against the Blues he didn’t want to tape his best players to the bench? Or is it that he didn’t see those plays being so bad? Whatever it was, in those moments it didn’t feel like the seeds of accountability were planted.
What I have heard and seen a bit, is that Berube is not a pure details guy. He’s a motivator, and so he probably has a good sense for when and how hard to push his players. Maybe he sensed that, this early in these newer relationships, it wouldn’t serve him well to lean too hard.
But if he’s not going to make it about these players in those moments, then he needs to become a details guy. Toronto is 13th in rushes against per game, and 17th in slot shots off the rush against, meaning these are pretty clean full-ice looks they’re giving up with such risk-heavy play from their F3s.
What always impressed me about Patrice Bergeron wasn’t so much the great defensive plays he made, it was the work he put in to getting to places on the ice that kept the opposition from seeing plays to make. He’d deter plays without touching the puck. They’d look into the slot, and there was nothing there because Bergeron was already back. They’d get the puck on a breakout, and there was nowhere to go because Bergeron was above his guy. You become like a great NFL cornerback that nobody ever throws at. The defence doesn’t look special because it’s hard work to get ahead of potential chances against.
For Bergeron, that probably came at the cost of his personal statistics over his career. But it helped his team win.
The Leafs had a pretty good run of hockey in the early going this season, beating New Jersey, giving the Rangers a great game, and smoking both LA and Tampa Bay. This is a talented team, and it’s in there.
But for this team to truly not be the “same old Leafs,” it’ll take some of that Bergeron-style commitment from their best players.
Somehow the Leafs went from the first date, to the honeymoon phase, to the gassy-in-sweatpants phase in a matter of weeks. It’s now Berube’s challenge to look at those great players and find a spark.
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