If the playoffs started today, the Toronto Maple Leafs would face Tampa Bay Lightning in a round-robin match. If they manage to get through this series, they are likely to face the Florida Panthers next time.
Fortunately for Toronto, they have received a preview of both teams over the past few games to assess their performance. Unfortunately for Maple Leafs, they left with two losses.
Let’s take a closer look.
Maple leaves against lightning
The Maple Leafs match on Thursday night was tough on every part of the word. The battle of equal force was tilted in the direction of Tampa Bay. Lightning generates more hits (53-41 attempts) and slot attempts (25-14); the quality of their shots is equal to 3.55 expected total score, which exceeds the generation of Toronto by only 1.33. While the hosts had a slight advantage in the chances of a quick attack, where they really strangled their opponent, he was out of the cycle, keeping Toronto to only two quality attempts in creating 13 for.
And then came the Special Team Battle, which Tampa Bay won by hand.
At no point in the game were the Leafs ahead in the xG battle – Lightning absolutely ran away with it, especially in the second half of the game. The final score was 5.36 – 2.15 in all situations.
To Toronto’s credit, they were without their MVP, Austin Matthews. The center was a force in the team’s last game earlier in April, which Maple Leafs won 6-2. But there are still excerpts for this single game.
A key statement plays right after that. This ensures that this is not a one-line or one-player team after the start of the post-season. Matthews will face difficult matches, no matter how the deck is arranged. He will probably see a lot of Victor Hedman in his season of Norris caliber. Anthony Cirelli’s outstanding play on defense will worry him. Or you can participate in power-to-power matches with Brayden Point.
If Tampa devises a way to stop the center’s elite offensive, they will need extra points to cope. While collectively the team was a strong offensive generator throughout the season, their completion fell below expectations at times.
Another sees teams returning from difficult matches. The two games Lightning and Maple Leafs played this month could be highs and lows in the series. The fact that one team absolutely crushes the other in a match does not mean that it is a game, a set, a match. This was true when Lightning lost, and now the Maple Leaves.
It’s all about how the teams react in the next game. Consecutive champion Bolts knows this. And this is the test for Toronto to pass the first round. The challenge is to do this against a team with elite skills all the time.
The other conclusion is the need to study the dynamic power of Lightning. On Thursday, Leafs conceded three goals.
Overall, Toronto is a strong penalty team and is not one-dimensional. But they will have work to do to limit the danger. Areas that need to be improved after this meeting include closing lanes to move to quality zones, clearing screens and restoring more rebounds to limit second chance efforts. Penalty killers will need to learn these trends and read the plays better to push the game out of the attack zone; this is the best way to prevent this team from scoring a goal while on a skater.
Maple Leafs vs. Panthers
Toronto was the better team below the surface and did quite well with their lead, although they were without Jake Moosen and lost Michael Bunting in the middle of the match. Positive conclusions in equal strength include the ability of Maple Leafs to exceed the chances of a goal by the Panthers and attacks by odd people. One thing they can work on to better hold their opponent is to close the pass lanes to suppress the movement of the puck towards the slot.
But the focus may again be on how the Panthers managed to return. In two consecutive meetings with Florida, Toronto made the lead and lost in overtime. Luckily for them, it wasn’t as dramatic as last time – a 5-1 lead that turned into a 7-6 overtime loss.
When teams lag behind, they tend to try to increase the pace of attack, even if it makes the game more risky. When teams lead, on the other hand, they can get into a shell, giving priority to defense. This one-dimensional strategy can burn the team, because if they do not reach their own zone or their goalkeeper does, the results can quickly equalize.
Maple Leafs are one of the best teams in the game with a lead. They generated the third-best percentage of expected goals at 5-on-5, second only to Florida. Their final is in fifth place, with Minnesota, Colorado and Tampa Bay ahead of them, but still above expectations. This explains why in some games they can increase the score better than most.
On the other side of the ice, they allow the 10th lowest percentage of expected goals against (2.43 out of 60) at 5 out of 5. So when they are ahead in the games, they tend to generate more than they allow. But while they may try to play in front of the blue, their goalkeepers allow more than expected; their actual goals versus percentage while leading is 20th in the league.
Now focus on their opponent.
Florida is one of the best teams to come from behind. Their expected generation of goals (3.18 out of 60) ranks third in the league, with Carolina and Toronto ahead. The Panthers’ ability to finish pushes them in first place in actual goals for (3.52 out of 60).
Now there may be a question of sustainability. Could this style of play burn them out over the next few weeks, when most teams tend to try to tighten up on defense and take fewer risks? It is quite possible. But given the strength of their attack and how they coped specifically in this match, this cannot be the line of thinking.
The Panthers are quite strong in terms of the expected goal limit, even when they are behind in matches. For them, sometimes the best defense is just an elite violation.
So, the lesson they need to learn is that Maple Leafs can’t just try to reduce and limit the offensive creation of their opponents, given how qualified they are. In the second period – a frame in which Toronto entered with a 2-0 lead – they generated only 0.15 expected goals for equal strength compared to 1.09 for the Panthers. This may have contributed to the fact that these teams went into the locker room 2-2.
Toronto picked up the pace in the third and obviously will not worry about playing 3 on 3 after the season. But they still have to try to make up for this loss, as they may face this opponent several more times. So the conclusion may be this violation, as the priority is to give the Panthers a steeper hill to climb, instead of hoping they can turn them off without relying on a lead.
Data via Sportlogiq.
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