The Maple Leafs' Atlantic Division title is paying off. Now they have to finish the job
OTTAWA — We are just six nights into the Stanley Cup playoffs, and already the Toronto Maple Leafs have realized the immense benefits of chasing down the Atlantic Division crown.
Securing that spot booked them a first-round matchup with the Ottawa Senators, a talented but inexperienced bunch, and Toronto has wasted no time in exerting control to grab a 3-0 lead in a series for the first time in a generation.
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While they'll obviously be careful not to get ahead of themselves with a chance to finish off the sweep Saturday and secure another week of preparation for Round 2, the Senators don't exactly look or sound like a group ready to rally.
'It's disheartening, to say the least,' Ottawa coach Travis Green said after Thursday's 3-2 overtime loss — the second straight game in which his group rallied in the third period only to come up short.
Making a playoff appearance for the ninth straight year, the Leafs know as well as anyone how thin the margins can be in the springtime.
That includes the difference between facing a wild-card team, with only eight players on the roster who had prior playoff experience, and what they might have gotten in a matchup against the Florida Panthers or Tampa Bay Lightning instead.
The perils of facing a perennial Stanley Cup contender are real. Tampa Bay finished second in the Atlantic this season — six points behind Toronto — and opened the Battle of Florida with two home games against the Panthers.
They now find themselves in a 2-0 hole.
If the Leafs manage to finish off the sweep, which would be the organization's first since a 2001 first-round series against Ottawa, they'll get the chance to sit back and wait for the winner of the Panthers-Lightning series to emerge. That's an appealing proposition for a team with serious designs on a long playoff run. Every bit of energy conserved matters.
'In a perfect world, yeah,' said veteran defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, a Cup winner last spring in Florida. 'But we also know that this is probably the hardest one coming up, too. We're going to prepare for the next one, put everything on the line, and that's all we can do.'
Had Toronto not pushed so hard for the Atlantic Division title and secured it in Game 81, it's hard to imagine it'd be in such an enviable position entering the second weekend of the playoffs.
Just four weeks ago, the Maple Leafs sat second in the standings. They were one point behind the Panthers until leapfrogging them with a March 29 win at the Los Angeles Kings — starting a closing stretch in which they went 9-1 to lock up the franchise's first crown in a full NHL season since taking the Northeast Division in 1999-00.
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They've been firing on all cylinders since the puck dropped in a best-of-seven against the Senators, playing a patient style under head coach Craig Berube that sees them get routinely outshot (Ottawa has an 81-65 edge overall in that department) but makes them less prone to costly defensive breakdowns. When you pair that with game-breaking talent at the top of the roster, a lethal power play and a red-hot goaltender in Anthony Stolarz, they're a formidable opponent. And they've only lost three of the past 19 games they've played overall.
'We didn't have an easy schedule to finish off there,' forward Mitch Marner said. 'We knew they were going to be hard games and playoff-like games. We tried to buy in at an early stage, and it's worked out well so far.'
The Leafs do not currently bear much resemblance to the Leafs of years gone by, a group that piled playoff heartbreak on top of playoff heartbreak while going 1-8 in various series dating back to 2017.
Finishing off the Senators quickly will almost certainly come with a huge shot of belief, if not some added relief. But even in building a commanding 3-0 series advantage, the players seemed to be keeping their feet on the ground. Naturally, there was some excitement in the air after Simon Benoit delivered an unlikely overtime winner on Thursday night, but no one was getting too carried away.
'You can't be satisfied with where you're at now,' Marner said.
'To be honest, it doesn't really mean anything,' captain Auston Matthews added. 'We can't take our foot off the gas.'
They've basically had the pedal to the floor for a month already. Going back to March, they didn't shy away from the importance of finishing ahead of the Panthers and Lightning in order to set up the best path possible through the playoff bracket and secure some extra home games at Scotiabank Arena.
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It's also built an unwavering sense of purpose, which has held strong even during the most challenging moments against Ottawa. The Leafs lost third-period leads in Games 2 and 3 and still managed to push the Senators to the brink of elimination.
'It says a lot about our group,' Ekman-Larsson said. 'It's going to happen. There's another team trying to do the same thing as you, and you're going to get a s—-y bounce or a mistake or (they'll make) a really good play.
'It's how you handle those bounces and stay in the game.'
(Photo of Auston Matthews: Chris Tanouye / Freestyle Photography / Getty Images)
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