TORONTO – Now that the Toronto Maple Leafs have started winning, you’re hearing a lot less about the perceived holes on their blue line.
As head coach Mike Babcock put it: “We seem to have it going not bad there.”
They’re playing high-event hockey and generating more offence than opponents despite surrendering the NHL’s third-most shot attempts per 60 minutes. That can be attributed, in part, to an internal philosophy of getting the puck to the forwards by any means necessary.
Essentially, they’re accentuating a strength. With so much elite talent up front, the Leafs believe they can compensate for their lack of stout defenders by tilting the ice towards the offensive zone.
“I know personally, I’ve learned our forwards are really good,” defenceman Connor Carrick said after Monday’s practice. “Just get the puck in areas where they can make plays. When you’re defence, a lot of times you’re in the quarterback position and sometimes you’ve just got to throw it up, make a good play and let your receivers – let your forwards – do something with it.”
In some circumstances, that means executing a breakout by flipping the puck high into the neutral zone.
While that might seem like a desperate move where a team is surrendering possession, the Leafs think it actually produces decent odds of success because of skilled forwards like Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner who have a knack for winning puck battles.
“What looks like a 50-50, if you’ve got someone who you know is real good in that spot you know as a defencemen making that play it’s really 70-30 for you,” said Carrick.
Even if they don’t immediately come up with possession, they’ve got a chance to force a mistake.
“At the worst case, you’ve got their defenceman … facing his own net with a guy all over him, with a bouncing puck, who has no idea what the other eight guys (on the ice) are doing,” said Carrick. “At the very least he’s not going to make a dangerous play against you. Really quickly you go from maybe hemmed in your own end to flipped puck to now at least now they’re under duress.
“Drop your problem on them.”
Babcock is deploying a defence corps that is asking some key personnel to learn on the fly.
The top pair features 22-year-old Morgan Rielly, who admits that he’s still adjusting to playing big minutes against top competition, and 25-year-old rookie Nikita Zaitsev – now halfway through his first professional season in North America after seven years in the KHL.
Then there’s Jake Gardiner and Carrick, a 22-year-old who still has under 100 games of NHL experience, and the veteran penalty killing duo of Matt Hunwick and Roman Polak.
Those groupings have been set in stone since Martin Marincin was lost to an upper-body injury on Dec. 10 in Boston – a span where Toronto has compiled a 9-3-3 record. Marincin is nearing a return to health and Frankie Corrado just completed an AHL conditioning stint, giving Babcock the opportunity to mix things up if he desires.
While defence is the area where the organization is most heavily looking for upgrades, the Leafs have shown an ability to get by as-is for the time being. Gardiner and Carrick, in particular, drive possession and goals-for percentage – aided by the fact they often start in the offensive zone and do a good job of keeping the puck moving in a forward direction.
For Carrick, the biggest adjustment at the NHL level has been making peace with the fact that every pass doesn’t need to be a crisp tape-to-tape play.
When he gets the puck, his options in order of preference are as follows:
1) Make an easy/safe play
2) Create a play
3) Ensure you don’t make a bad play and live to fight another day
“It’s that third step that’s hard for young D-men because you’re so used to hitting (options) one and two growing up,” said Carrick. “You don’t have to make No. 3 a lot, you don’t have to flip it away. Sometimes you’ve got to tip your cap and all five of their guys are on top of your five guys and you’ve got to flip it or put it in a good spot or start the forecheck and kind of just put the other team at a disadvantage.”
It makes particular sense with the kind of offensive depth the Leafs boast. The more time Marner or Matthews or William Nylander have the puck on their stick, the more likely something positive is going to happen.
“We want to break out quick, get the puck to the forwards and not play defence – just worry about those guys doing everything,” said Rielly.
Lately, the concerns about the team’s blue line have abated. They now appear to have been overstated.
With more time to adjust to Babcock’s system and stability with pairings/assignments/expectations, the Leafs are in a nice groove.
“Our team game is getting better,” said Carrick. “When your team game is better, your reads are clearer and when your reads are clearer there’s less things that are kind of in question. You’re able to play with a lot more confidence. That’s where everybody just seems so bang on with what they’re trying to do, and they’re able to execute it, because they’re not skating somewhere thinking about where else they should be.
“They’re just worrying about their puck battle and whatever, and decisions just become cleaner for everybody – from the goalie on out.”
