Leafs’ diversified offense makes them scary

The Toronto Maple Leafs carry a 1-0 series lead in to Wednesday night as they host the Florida Panthers for Game 2 in their second-round series. The Leafs won Game 1, thanks in part to a three-point effort from William Nylander and scoring from their blue line, with Morgan Rielly and Chris Tanev getting on the board.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk are joined by former QMJHL coach Jon Doyens for another edition of The Coaches Room. This week,

Tyler Yaremchuk: It’s a 1-0 series lead for the Maple Leafs. I want to talk to you a little bit about their offensive attack. In years past, they were always a high-possession team, they wanted to hold onto the puck, but this year we’ve seen their attack diversify a little bit. Is that a fair way to describe what we saw in Game 1?

Jon Goyens: At a few points this year, we’ve talked about how the Leafs need to give up something so that they could progress in the long term, so that they become more playoff-ready. For years, it was a lot of forced possession entries. Over and over again, they would be ranked near the top among teams who turnover the puck, then it ends up in the back of the net off an attempted zone entry.

They have learned that balance that Tampa Bay Lightning had to learn after they lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2019. Sometimes you have to play the place-and-chase game, and that was in full display early in Game 1. But that didn’t happen overnight – that’s 82 games and the first round of the playoffs in preparation for this moment, to play one of the heaviest forecheck teams in the NHL in the Panthers.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…