With the Jason Collins situation and Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement both coming in back to back weeks this column has been devoid of any commentary on the NHL Playoffs and given that I am also an editor of an NHL blog (No Pucks Given, feel free to check it out) I feel that it is time to satisfy the hockey crazed masses with my take on the first round of the NHL Playoffs, and more specifically the series that captivated much of Canada in the classic Bruins/Leafs first round series.
While many analysts thought that the Bruins would make quick work of Toronto, I had a feeling that while the Leafs would not win their first round series against a Bruins team that was slightly better in every aspect of the game that Toronto would be able to pull off just enough magic to force a Game Seven where anything could happen. I will admit I figured the only way the Leafs could manage to pull that off was to win all of their home games at the ACC to do so, but I was not surprised that the Leafs took it to Game Seven. Yet what has surprised me is the shock that the Leafs did not advance. Yes they went up 4-1 in the third period and by all accounts should have held onto that lead to pull off the 3-1 series comeback, but this was a Leafs team with many flaws and weaknesses that pointed to an early exit out of their first playoff series in nearly a decade.
So as many media members in Toronto and throughout the country look at who is to blame for the Leafs monumental third period collapse on Monday night, I am sitting looking at what was an over achieving team reaching their ceiling and then some by even getting to Game Seven of the first round. This isn't a bad thing before the countless of Leafs fans think I am ripping their team, but rather providing some perspective on what the team has accomplished in 2013. Their loss in Game Seven will sting, as it should after the game was won, but this Leafs team was not going to go on to win the Stanley Cup.
This was a team that fired its GM Brian Burke at the start of the season for failing to put together a winner and lacked depth and experience. Their star forward Joffrey Lupul was injured for much of their season and while being scrappy and getting underrated production once again from Phil Kessel (who Leaf fans somehow still manage to hate for whatever reason) they didn't have a spectacular amount of offensive firepower on any of their four forward lines, and once Tyler Bozak was forced out of the series against Boston they might have had the worst group of centers out of all of the 16 NHL teams that made the playoffs,
On defense the Leafs employed the services of Dion Phaneuf, Jake Gardiner, Cody Franson, Carl Gunnarsson, Ryan O' Byrne, John-Michael Liles, Mike Kostka and Mark Fraser during their series with the Bruins and while Cody Franson and Jake Gardiner managed to over achieve and along with Gunnarsson are valuable to the Leafs future the lack of experience and veteran leadership on the blueline wasn't going to take them to the promised land in 2013. Put it this way, when John-Michael Lilles is your longest serving NHL defenseman in your lineup, you aren't a contender.
In fact Lilles is just one of two players over 30 on the Leafs entire playoff roster, with fourth line grinder Colton Orr being the second. If you need an eye-opener as to why I am saying that the Leafs Nation should hold their heads a little bit higher and get off the ledge this morning that should be it. This team was never supposed to be a team to contend for a Stanley Cup in 2013, it was intentionally built to contend in the future.
The Leafs entire season has been built on this principle, before the lockout the Leafs had a chance at Roberto Luongo, a veteran goaltender with a 2010 Olympic Gold Medal and 32 playoff wins under his belt, GM Dave Nonis opted to stick with his goaltender of the future in James Reimer who had yet to play a full healthy 82 game NHL schedule as a starter after suffering a concussion last season. Reimer who is 24, was a better player for the future, once again driving home the point that this Leafs team was nowhere near to being all in for this year's postseason, in fact they weren't even sitting on a good hand with a roster full of developing talent.
That is not meant as a criticism, this Leafs organization has decided that trying to find the quick fix, something that did not work for nine consecutive years of finishing outside of the playoffs, did not work and instead they would grow their team from the ground up. In 2012/13 they made the coaching change from Ron Wilson to Randy Carlyle and showed promise. This year, they put faith in a young team and created a culture of physical play that paid off. That hard work created better play from their players, who over achieved with the added work rate and with the winning has came full-scale improvement in the entire organization, but champions are not built overnight, you can't just skip the roster building step with hard work and heart at the end of the day what you saw in the Boston Bruins comeback in the third period was what the Leafs were lacking.
The Bruins were a team that won a Stanley Cup two seasons ago, one with surefire Hall of Fame players in Jaromir Jagr and very likely Zdeno Chara. Beyond that the Bruins had four solid lines of talent and when the injury bug that always comes in the playoffs struck their blueline corps they had veteran players like Wade Redden and younger prospects in Dougie Hamilton and Matt Bartkowski to step up.
Boston was the deeper, more experienced, bigger, stronger, and faster team with the better goaltender in Tuukka Rask. That is why they were the favorites in the series and that is why they were up 3-1 in the series before the Leafs made their miracle push to send the series as far as they possibly could. When Claude Julien switched Jaromir Jagr onto a line with Patrice Bergeron he could because he had options and could hide a cold player or his fourth line. Randy Carlyle had to make the best out of what he could, especially with Bozak out of the lineup. When Patrice Bergeron scored he already had the experience of nine NHL seasons and multiple Game Sevens to fall back on. The Leafs didn't.
So don't fret Leaf fans, hold your heads a little bit higher this week. Because even though your team may have blown a 4-1 lead in the third period of a Game Seven, it really was beyond what many expected would even happen. Your young team over-achieved thanks to hard work and young players arriving ahead of schedule. If the rebuild of your team sticks to plan, you will be back next year. As for now Leafs fans, you are looking at a team that is still a few pieces and some added experience away from being able to consider itself a contender for that elusive Stanley Cup you have been waiting for since 1967.
