Why the Maple Leafs came up short again: Failing stars, coaching and depth

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That was bad.

What went so wrong for the Maple Leafs again this spring?

Let’s break down the biggest problems.

Stars fail

The way the Leafs are built, the stars have to rule. And rule they did not when the Leafs needed them most against the Panthers.

This is a familiar story.

Auston Matthews only scored one goal against Florida. He shot 1-for-26 (3.9 percent) in the series, beating Sergei Bobrovsky just that one time – a big goal for certain – in a season-saving Game 6 victory. He scored just three goals all postseason, the same number as Max Pacioretty and Max Domi.

The Panthers got away with matching their third line against Matthews’ unit in Games 3 and 4. That third line, headlined by Brad Marchand, rocked all series for the Panthers, but that’s a matchup Matthews’ line should win and has to win.

The Leafs’ top line was outscored 3-1 in the final four games of the series. It wasn’t just the offence, it was the defence from a line with two former Selke Trophy finalists on it. For example, an uncharacteristic lost board battle from Matthews that led to the Panthers’ first goal in what became a blowout loss in Game 5.

Matthews didn’t get enough help from Mitch Marner, either.

This was more of the same stilted playoff performance from previous years for Marner, a soon-to-be free agent. The hopeful carryover from his late emergence at the 4 Nations Face-Off didn’t happen. Marner didn’t make plays, didn’t shoot the puck, didn’t carry the puck and wasn’t even his usual awesome self defensively.

The blind backhand pass he made in the second period of Game 5 led directly to a goal and essentially sealed defeat.

Marner registered one takeaway in seven games against the Panthers. That’s indicative of a Marner who wasn’t pesky enough.

Somehow, Marner registered just one point (an assist) in the last four games of the series and only three shots on goal in the last five. He has scored 13 goals in 70 career playoff games.

Mitch Marner couldn’t produce, on defence or offence, when his team needed him. (John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)

William Nylander, meanwhile, led the Leafs with 15 points in the playoffs, including a team-high (even with Pacioretty) six points against Florida. His performance, too, deteriorated as the series continued.

Nylander didn’t register a point after Game 3 and made several defensive errors that led to goals, including on Marchand’s OT winner in that third game.

All the concerns with having John Tavares centre the second line re-emerged against Florida.

Tavares was a non-factor. He finished without a point in six of the seven games (and also went scoreless in the final two games of the first round). He collected one five-on-five point in 105 minutes all series, fewer than Max Domi, Bobby McMann, Chris Tanev, Steven Lorentz and Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

The pace often appeared too quick for him, especially when he had to match up against Aleksander Barkov’s line in Florida.

Florida outshot the Leafs by 24 in Tavares’ five-on-five minutes and outscored them by three (5-8). Shot attempts were 146-89 for Florida in those minutes.

Tavares finished the postseason with seven points in 13 games. A lagging Leaf power play hurt that production.

Ultimately, it was too much to ask a 34-year-old to play 18.5 minutes a night as the 2C in the playoffs.

Tavares had a redemptive regular season. He was still an $11 million player who couldn’t give the Leafs enough of what they needed when it mattered. Just like the rest of the stars.

No depth

The Leafs needed more help than they got from the stars. But it’s OK for those stars to get some help, too. None of that really came against Florida.

It was another one of those familiar playoff storylines, and one that loomed during the regular season.

Leaf killer Brad Marchand (eight points) and linemate Eetu Luostarinen (seven) led the Panthers in scoring from the third line. They owned the Leafs, who basically got nothing from the bottom half of their lineup.

The following players failed to score not just against the Panthers but all postseason: Scott Laughton, Bobby McMann, Pontus Holmberg, Calle Järnkrok, and Steven Lorentz.

That’s five of six regulars in the bottom six.

The front office’s failure to upgrade at centre – last summer or in-season – stung in the second round as Anton Lundell and Florida’s third line surged, and the Leafs had no answer.

Toronto paid a first-round pick for Laughton to be that guy. He finished his first postseason with the Leafs with zero goals, two assists and only three shots on goal, mostly centering a defensive-minded fourth-ish line that couldn’t generate any offence. The Leafs already had David Kämpf around to do the jobs that Laughton ended up doing.

In other words, Laughton didn’t solve any needs, and the team paid a high price to get him, though he does have another year left on his contract.

Not landing someone (a lot) better at the trade deadline also, crucially, meant the Leafs had little backup when Tavares struggled.

The Brendan Shanahan-Brad Treliving front office tried for the likes of Brayden Schenn, Brock Nelson and Ryan O’Reilly, but couldn’t get them for one reason or another.

It’s worth wondering, in hindsight, whether they would have been better off paying the asset haul that went to Boston for Brandon Carlo – Fraser Minten and a first round pick – for Charlie Coyle instead and using a lesser asset on a defenceman.

Or maybe they should have spent the first-round pick not on Laughton, a clear fallback choice, but on another forward who might put the puck in the net. Someone like Vancouver’s Brock Boeser comes to mind.

Domi languished out of place in the middle. Three straight icings by his line in Game 3 spurred the goal that cut the Leafs’ 3-1 lead to one. In other words, it prompted the Panthers’ comeback in a game that could have all but ended the series.

The Leafs’ sixth and seventh top goal scorers during the regular season, McMann and Nick Robertson, had no impact in the playoffs.

Outcoached

Craig Berube had no answers when the series began to slip away from the Leafs.

He didn’t adjust when Matthews and Marner struggled together or when Barkov’s line, with help from the defensive pairing of Gustav Forsling and Aaron Ekblad, took out Tavares and Nylander in Florida.

Saying he didn’t panic is a generous description of his approach. The not-so-generous version is that he stubbornly stuck to what wasn’t working.

The way Berube had the Leafs playing didn’t pay off like he hoped. The Leafs scored a total of four goals in the final four games against the Panthers. They had the worst quality of offence of any team in the playoffs (2.05 expected goals per 60 minutes at five on five).

Coach Craig Berube failed to adapt as his offence struggled to make plays throughout the series. (John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)

The payoff for that dump-and-chase, risk-averse approach was supposed to be stronger defence, but that didn’t end up materializing either, even with a solid core. The Leafs surrendered 26 goals to the Panthers (3.7 per game), including 12 at home in losses in Games 5 and 7.

They were often stuck defending for long stretches, and even their usually stingy top pair had issues.

More than 43 percent of the Leafs’ even-strength minutes in the playoffs were spent in the defensive zone. The NHL average is 39.7 percent.

The result of that: Less time in the offensive zone, just 39 percent, also below the league average of 41.6 percent.

The Leafs gave up more than 200(!) shot attempts (550-773) than they generated in the postseason. It’s hard to generate offence when you’re defending that much more than the opponent.

Their power play also failed to adjust against the aggressive Panthers. The Leafs went 2-20, failing to score in the final four games of the series.

Lost goalie battle

Would this series have gone any differently had Anthony Stolarz been healthy? Maybe, though, given the lack of offence as the series went along, maybe not.

Joseph Woll wasn’t the problem per se, but he wasn’t the solution either. He finished the series with an .886 save percentage. He didn’t make crucial saves enough, not nearly as often as his counterpart.

Again, the Leafs had the weaker goaltending in a big series.

Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky grew unbeatable as the series developed. He had a .957 save percentage in the final four games.

The Leafs didn’t challenge him a ton, but he still came up with big stops, like when Nylander raced in for a breakaway in what was then a scoreless first period in Game 5.

A lot has to go wrong to lose a series the way the Leafs did. A lot did.

— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Hockey Reference.

(Top photo: John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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