The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a familiar position at the beginning of April. For the ninth straight season, the Leafs will play in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The organization and their fans hope that this is where the familiarity ends; can playoff disappointments of the last decade be a thing of the past?
If the Leafs win the Atlantic Division, they will likely play the Ottawa Senators in the first round. The Senators are good, but they are not on the same level as the Tampa Bay Lightning or Florida Panthers, and the Leafs would be the favorite. Anything but a series win would be considered a major disappointment, and should result in significant changes this offseason.
Without winning at least one or two rounds, the Leafs' core group of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly will have burned through three coaches and three different systems without any playoff success.
Will head coach Craig Berube's system force them to the inside where playoff goals are generally scored, or will the scoring woes -- and playoff failures -- continue?
The changes on offense -- and in goal
Under previous coach Sheldon Keefe, the Leafs were one of the league's best regular season teams. Keefe identified why the Leafs failed in the playoffs, but was unable to convince the top players to buy in to changing. After taking over this season, has Berube fundamentally changed how the Leafs play? To the eye, their play style features more forechecking, cycle play and net-front focus than the off-the-rush, skill and speed that used to be a hallmark of the team.
The Leafs previously struggled to score in the playoffs because their offensive play style was not conducive to the type of goals scored in the playoffs. The fancy passing and highlight-reel goals are few and far between in the playoffs. It is about getting inside, creating traffic at the net front and in hockey terms, "getting the greasy/garbage goals."
The differences between Keefe and Berube's systems are stark. The Leafs are not controlling the play the way they did under Keefe, and they're playing in more low-scoring games. In Keefe's final season, 2023-24, Leafs games averaged 6.81 goals for both teams, compared to 6.19 under Berube. Last season, Toronto ranked second in goals per game (3.63) and second in scoring chances per game (18.09). They currently rank ninth in goals per game (3.26) while ranking 22nd (14.55) in scoring chances, per Stathletes.
Berube has the Leafs playing a more direct offensive style, with focuses on forechecking, puck pursuit and puck recovery. It functions as a dump-and-chase style of play, a significant departure from Keefe's possession style. Toronto ranked top 10 in possession time under Keefe, and ranks 20th under Berube. Most notable is the change in how Toronto is scoring their goals. Their rush chances have dropped dramatically, from second in the NHL last season (17.5 per game) to 15th this season (14.5).
The interesting exception is that Toronto is one of four teams with more than 90 breakaways, and Nylander (unsurprisingly) leads the NHL with 18 goals off the rush. Last season, the Leafs scored 7.7% of their goals directly off a rebound, dead last in the NHL. Under Berube, they are scoring 10% of their goals off rebounds, according to Stathletes.
The defensive side is where major changes in results have occurred. In Keefe's final season, the Leafs surrendered 3.18 goals per game, with an .893 save percentage for their goaltenders. The Leafs averaged 32.5 shots per game, while surrendering 29.8. Under Berube, the Leafs average 28.2 shots per game and surrender 29.3. The difference is Toronto is allowing 7% fewer scoring chances per game under Berube because of a conscious commitment to defense. Berube is opposed to the track meet style of play, and while Nylander gets his nightly breakaway, the ping pong rush chances do not occur with the same regularity. Last season, Toronto was +2.11 in scoring chances per game, compared to -0.34 this season.
The Leafs are playing in tighter games and creating more favorable situations for their goaltenders. Anthony Stolarz ranks fourth in goals saved above expected (13.26), per Stathletes. Toronto has the NHL's best winning percentage in one-goal games because they are more comfortable defending in those situations. This is obviously critical come in the playoffs.
A defense built differently
Berube's system is most successful with defensemen who play a physical, defensive style. Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving's remodel of the blue line has fit well with Berube's desired style. He inherited Jake McCabe, and added Chris Tanev, Brandon Carlo, Simon Benoit and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to a blue line led by Morgan Rielly.
Berub's team in St. Louis featured Colton Parayko, Jay Bouwmeester, Joel Edmundson, Robert Bortuzzo, and Carl Gunnarsson. There are obvious similarities between those defensemen and the Leafs' group. They are big, physical shot blockers. All are defensively oriented. The Leafs don't get much from the blue line in the way of offensive production, and it certainly feels like they're more defensively stable.
It is no secret that the playoffs are a different style of game that caters towards toughness rather than skill. Far more physicality and stick infractions go uncalled in the postseason. The Leafs have struggled to draw penalties and have not been very good about dishing out the physicality, either. The defensemen the Leafs have acquired have proven track records of ramping up the truculence in the playoffs, and will join in on the physical side of the game. Treliving and Berube had a clear vision, and the play style matches the roster -- with one exception.
Perhaps the biggest similarity between Berube's teams in St. Louis and Toronto is the (relative) lack of production for Morgan Rielly and Vince Dunn. The lone offensive defenseman in St. Louis didn't thrive until he joined the Seattle Kraken. Rielly's decrease in production has been a significant topic of discussion, but he is the blueliner most negatively impacted by Berube's play style. He thrives in an offensive system that relies on activation and rush offense, as Dunn does in Seattle and Rielly did under Keefe.
Dunn averaged fewer than 18 minutes per game under Berube. He's averaged more than 22 minutes per game in Seattle, and his offensive production has nearly doubled from 102 points in 267 games with the Blues to 180 points in 268 games with the Kraken. Compare that to Rielly, who has seen his production dip from 202 points in 274 games under Keefe (0.74 points per game) to 35 points in 74 games under Berube (0.47). While Rielly has not been up to his usual standard, there is evidence that Berube's system suppresses offensive defensemen.
Will it translate to playoff success?
The one thing that has not and cannot be accounted for: the curse. There is not a statistic nor logical explanation for the playoff curse that seems to haunt the Leafs, the way it haunted the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs before they broke through. The Leafs have playoff demons.
Many observers have wondered if this core has what it takes to climb the mountain. Berube's style seems to be more conducive to playoff success. However, the recent playoff problem has not been defensive for the Leafs: It is that their scoring has dried up.
There is little opportunity for a track meet style in the playoffs with how closely teams check and the way games are officiated. The team's change in style of play under Berube has made Toronto more prepared for playoff hockey. Strong defensive play and offense driven by a tough forecheck that wears teams down is more translatable. That style makes teams uncomfortable because it is more grueling; players handle the puck differently if they think someone is going to doggedly pressure and physically engage them along the boards.
If the Leafs are going to have success in the playoffs, three things need to happen:
The goaltending needs to be good
They must continue to play well defensively
Their best offensive players must create more scoring chances in dangerous areas of the ice
The Leafs have built habits of forechecking, puck pursuit and commitment to defense over the course of the season. It is a matter of executing on those principles. Stopping on pucks, making the extra effort to clear the puck in a tough situation, winning the extra net-front battle to score the ugly goal, finishing the forecheck to wear down their opponent. There is no track meet to be had; breakaways and odd-man rushes will be few and far between.
All those habits have been engrained in the players since Berube took over, it is up to the players to prove they can get the job done when the games matter most.