The Maple Leafs played coin-flip games all season. It’s backfiring at the worst time

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This was always the risk.

All season long, the Toronto Maple Leafs played close game after close game, coin-flip games, essentially, that could have gone either way. All season long it was said that this was how they would win in the playoffs. It was the Craig Berube Way for playoff success. And in Games 2 and 3 of this first-round series the Leafs won those coin flips, beating the Senators twice in overtime.

But that’s the thing with coin flips. They are 50-50 propositions. In Games 4 and 5, the coin flip suddenly went the other way.

On Tuesday night, with a second chance to bury the Sens, the Leafs failed to score even once.

In terms of quality, their five-on-five offence has been just about the worst of any team in the playoffs (as of this writing).

Those 1.83 expected goals per 60 minutes at five-on-five are down from 2.4 during the regular season, which still only ranked 22nd overall. The Leafs are mustering just over six high-danger shot attempts per 60 in these playoffs, easily the worst of any playoff team (the Hurricanes are up over 14).

In other words, the Leafs aren’t generating a lot of the good stuff around the Ottawa net. Or much stuff period. They rank last in shot attempt rate and second-last (topping only the Sens) in shot rate.

If not for the shaky goaltending early in the series from Linus Ullmark, the Leafs wouldn’t have as many five-on-five goals this series (10) as they do. (And two of those goals came in overtimes.) Ullmark turned down every good-to-great look they had in Game 5 with a 27-save shutout.

Dig into the five-on-five production and you’ll see that exactly half of the goals came from defencemen. In fact, the co-team leaders in five-on-five goals this series are both defencemen: Morgan Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, with two each.

In other words:

Defencemen: 5
Forwards: 5

William Nylander, who led the team in five-on-five goals during the regular season, still has yet to score one in this series while Berube continues to search for the right left winger to play alongside him and John Tavares.

In Game 5 alone, the Leafs coach tried Pontus Holmberg, Bobby McMann, Max Domi and Calle Järnkrok.

Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Matthew Knies and John Tavares all have scored one five-on-five goal apiece in this series.

Domi scored the other one for the forwards in overtime of Game 2.

When they hired Berube last summer to replace Sheldon Keefe, the Leafs decided it was better to play this way. The Berube Way would eliminate risk. The Leafs would take fewer chances and as a result, they would give up fewer chances. That would lead to more (any!) success in the playoffs.

But there was always a hitch with that plan.

A team that had struggled to score in the playoffs with a more explosive style of offence was now deciding, essentially, that scoring less would be better in the end.

The Leafs were making the margins for victory slimmer than before that way. More chances to win or lose 2-1 games than blow teams away 5-1. And if their power play went cold, well, trouble might strike. And of course, the power play has gone 0-7 in the last two losses, failing to score when they needed to in Game 5, especially.

The Leafs have had only one consistently dangerous line against the Sens and that’s been the top unit of Knies, Matthews and Marner. They were mostly one-and-done in Game 5.

Not having Matthews at 100 percent is obviously no small detail in the five-on-five struggles.

The greatest five-on-five scorer in hockey before this season struggled all season to produce there, finishing with a career-low (by far) 15 goals. He had 38 last season.

During Tuesday night’s game, Matthews had his left hand treated at one point by Paul Ayotte, the team’s head athletic therapist. This style of play, with more point shots as well as less zone time and possession, probably isn’t helping him either.

But this isn’t just about Matthews.

As a team, the Leafs have struggled to consistently generate quality offence this series. Too many shots from the outside and not enough from the interior of the ice. Rielly leads the team in five-on-five shot attempts against the Senators.

The Tavares-Nylander combo has struggled to gain traction and the continued presence of Holmberg there hasn’t helped. Berube weirdly went back to it again to start Game 5 before pivoting repeatedly to other options, options that never included Max Pacioretty, who spent the most time with Tavares and Nylander during the regular season.

There hasn’t been much threatening beyond the top two lines, not with McMann now struggling to score and Nick Robertson, seventh on the team in goals during the regular season, out of the lineup.

Scott Laughton, the Leafs’ big trade deadline addition at forward, hasn’t scored in this series and has only one assist — and one shot on goal at five-on-five.

Third lines led by Domi have been hammered at both ends.

Berube has rolled four lines a lot more than he should.

By the end of the second period of Game 4, that Domi line had played nearly as much (4:49) as the Matthews’ unit (6:00). Berube did get Matthews, Marner and Nylander a lengthy shift together late in that second frame. But the point is, the Leafs coach hasn’t been leaning hard enough on those top guys to push the team over the top.

Nylander played just under 21 minutes in Game 5. Matthews logged 19:47. Tavares played just over 19 minutes. Marner came in at just under 22 minutes.

Regardless of opportunity, the Leafs, their best players especially, need to find a way to create better looks, more often, on offence. Get inside, somehow, against an Ottawa line of defence that’s been difficult to penetrate.

The Leafs should still win this series, regardless. It’s later in these playoffs, when the opponents get better, a lot better, that this strategy might really backfire. That it’s backfiring now, though, is worrisome and could cost them sooner than it should.

— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, and Evolving Hockey

(Photo: Nick Turchiaro / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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