In the biggest game of this Maple Leafs core’s career to date, they put together their most embarrassing display of hockey yet.
The Panthers dominated this game when it was close, the Leafs‘ top players were their worst players, and the only potential positive is that the Leafs still have another game to show that they have any pride whatsoever.
Your game in 10:
1. As expected, the Leafs entered this game with some lineup changes in tow, inserting Nick Robertson and reuniting him with his regular linemates Bobby McMann and Max Domi, as well as dressing David Kampf for the first time since April 2 in between Scott Laughton and Steven Lorentz. That meant both Calle Jarnkrok and Pontus Holmberg sat out as healthy scratches.
By the time the puck dropped, we immediately saw the home ice difference. Paul Maurice started with the Anton Lundell line, and Craig Berube countered with the John Tavares line rather than the Auston Matthews line, which is the matchup the Panthers were pushing in Florida. There was a notable difference, though, as Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad were matched in that spot, rather than the Niko Mikkola and Seth Jones pairing.
It was a timid start to the game, with neither team recording a shot on goal until roughly the five-minute mark of the period, but then Florida started to take the game over. First, Carter Verhaeghe hit the crossbar off the rush, followed by a prime Sam Bennett chance in the slot that he fired wide on the follow-up. William Nylander responded with a breakaway chance, but he couldn’t solve Sergei Bobrovsky.
That was likely the Leafs‘ best chance to make something of this game, as sad as it sounds. There was also a great Simon Benoit chance in front (shot wide) to take an early lead. But end of the day, shots were 10-3 with six minutes left in the period. Florida was tilting the ice.
2. It felt like a matter of time until the Panthers broke through, and they did with just over five minutes remaining in the period. The goal started in the Panthers’ end, with the Leafs‘ top line’s inability to sustain any pressure. The Leafs put a puck in deep, and Florida flipped it out for a 1v1 rush, which the Leafs held off. The puck went into the corner, where the Leafs initially won the battle, but after Mitch Marner chipped it to Matthews, the Toronto captain gave it away with a soft pass attempt instead of bearing down and making a hard play. It more or less sums up Matthews’ series so far.
The puck bounced across the slot, where Reinhart teed up Aaron Ekblad to step into a shot and roof it on Woll below the top of the circle. There was nothing the goalie could’ve done about this one.
In the first period, the Leafs’ top line was out-attempted 11-1, outshot 6-0, and outscored 1-0. Calling it a no-show would be putting it lightly. These are supposed to be the leaders of the team, and that’s how they came out for the biggest game of their NHL careers. There’s nothing else to say.
3. The Leafs came out with a little juice to begin the second period as both Nylander and Laughton shot it off the post in quick succession. Notably absent from the “creating offense” department was the first line, which accomplished absolutely nothing while the game was within reach.
Toronto’s only dangerous player was Nylander. On his next shift, he had a good rush chance, driving wide on Forsling 1v1 and shoveling a one-handed shot on net. One of the biggest swing factors in this series is Florida’s realization that there is only one Leaf to target with their shutdown efforts: Nylander. They’ve put Forsling on #88 and made his life a lot more difficult as he plays with an aging Tavares and Pacioretty, while prime-aged Matthews and Marner play together with an emerging power forward and continue to do absolutely nothing when it matters.
4. Just over six minutes into the period, the Panthers doubled their lead off a point shot that deflected off Laughton and in. Laughton’s stick was down and flat on the ice, but the puck powered through it and went high past Woll.
Similar to the first goal, there was a series of battles lost before the goal. For me, it really started the shift before the goal when Craig Berube sent out the McMann-Domi-Robertson line for an offensive-zone draw against the Panthers’ fourth line; they got worked all the way back into their zone, leading to the defensive-zone faceoff preceding the goal-scoring sequence.
5. At 2-0 down, the Leafs lost all structure. They tried to open up the game, but against a structured team like Florida, the Panthers simply waited for their moments to counterattack. In this case, it came courtesy of a Marner 360 pass up the middle of the ice on a breakout.
I don’t think we need to talk about this in much detail. A 360 pass on the backhand up the middle of the ice is not playoff hockey. The Panthers pounced on it, leading to a 3v2 where Marner was beat backdoor for a tap-in.
6. Down 3-0, Max Domi went out for the draw and tried to drop the gloves with Matthew Tkachuk, but Tkachuk wasn’t going to give that fight to the Leafs. Domi then slashed him and took a penalty, and I guess if you wanted a positive, the Leafs killed it off.
Craig Berube finally started blending his lines afterward, and the Leafs created a few looks, but once you’re down 3-0 and playing terribly to the point where you need to change every forward line, it’s hard to mount much of a real comeback against a proper hockey team.
7. And then the Panthers made it 4-0. Following a brutal turnover by Chris Tanev, where he tried to hold it and make a play instead of getting it out, Lundell hit Mikkola on the back side, where Mikkola walked into a slapshot and scored.
It was a heavy shot — Mikkola does own a bomb — but Bobrovsky made some good saves in this game, and the Leafs’ goalie allowed one from the top of the circle without a screen. It was Florida’s fourth goal on their 24th shot.
I don’t really blame Woll for the other three at all — and he kept them in it for the first half of the game — but this one was ugly.
8. At the start of the third period, after Knies drew a penalty on a mini-breakaway chance, the Leafs rolled out their five-forward unit, who continued to accomplish nothing. Matthews, in particular, hasn’t made a good decision on the power play in several games and has become a total dead end with the puck.
The Panthers made it 5-0 a few minutes later when Kampf got cleaned out on a faceoff and the original point shot double deflected, including off McCabe’s face. AJ Greer only needed to put the puck into an empty net. It spelled the end of the night for Woll.
The Leafs inserted Kampf and played him at center, but he won under 40% of his draws on the night. They moved Laughton over, who was winning over 56 percent of his faceoffs in the playoffs entering this game.
Under three minutes later, Kampf tried to tie up his man off a defensive-zone faceoff on the penalty kill and did a reasonable job of it, but the Panthers won the race to the puck and got it to Bennett in the high slot, where he ripped one high past Matt Murray to make it 6-0.
9. The most embarrassing aspect of this entire debacle might have been that Craig Berube kept Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner together for basically the whole game. He shuffled it a bit in the second period, then reunited them for the third period.
10. The Leafs broke the shutout in the end (courtesy of Robertson), but they are kidding themselves with this offensive effort. They were shut out in the game before and didn’t score in overtime of Game 3, either, which lasted nearly an entire period. Their last goal before Robertson’s 6-1 goal came in the third period when a Rielly shot deflected off Seth Jones and in. A Leaf hasn’t scored a clean goal in a moment of consequence against Bobrovsky since Tavares beat him on a wrap-around in the first period of Game 3 (Tavares’ goal in the second deflected off Forsling).
And yet, the Leafs aren’t driving the net hard, aren’t cycling, and aren’t funneling pucks and bodies to the net. They also aren’t scoring cleanly. Their top players are leading the charge, and nothing changes unless they find a way to elevate. We can waste time debating who between Robertson, Kampf, Jarnkrok, and Holmberg should play, but this is on the top players. They got scored on. They didn’t produce. They were outright bad. Through and through, they set the tone in this embarrassing performance, and either they will need to change it in Game 6, or they will be changed this offseason.
Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts
Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts
