In Randy Carlyle’s view, the Stanley Cup playoffs are a quest. The Holy Grail is more than obvious, but for the Toronto Maple Leafs coach the prize at the end is almost secondary.
The real goal is learning how to compete; how to play hockey with hair on your chest.
If you’re man enough — tough enough, smart enough, disciplined enough — you have a chance to win in the playoffs, but only one thing is guaranteed in Carlyle’s view: if you’re not enough of those things, you won’t.
The Leafs, in a 3-1 hole to the Boston Bruins, are facing elimination Friday night. And while that might prompt some introspection or a quick shift in strategy or personnel, for Carlyle it only means one thing: keep doing the same thing, just more of it.
“We’ve got an idea and we’re going to live with how we believe we need to be successful,” he was saying Thursday in Toronto before heading out for Boston. “If you watch the teams that are having success in the playoffs they’re all physical, they all have good special teams and they’re sound defensively and their work ethic is there. The gap between the 30th and first place team isn’t that big, you have to earn your rewards and earn your inches and in the playoffs it gets that much more difficult.”
Make no mistake, Carlyle would like nothing more than to advance deep into the tournament. But it’s almost as if the Leafs’ first post-season appearance under his charge is less about an outcome than cementing an identity and developing a rock-solid cultural foundation for the future.
He’s not much of a chest thumper but it was telling that prior to Game 4 he let slip a small boast with regard to the transformation of a small, soft, skill-based club under Ron Wilson into a bigger, braver, tougher group in his 14 months on the job.
“You have to be physical and win your share of 1-on-1 battles. If there’s a 50-50 puck you have to stop on that puck and win that battle,” he said of his expectations for his team against the Bruins. “That’s the tenacity that we’re asking from our group and we’ve asked that from our group from Day 1 and that’s one thing we’ve put our stamp on.
“We had to be better than that coming into this year and there’s nobody in this room that can say we haven’t done that.”
The only problem with the formula Carlyle is so adamant about is that the Bruins share much the same view but simply happen to be much better equipped to do it.
Not to undersell the Leafs abilities, but line for line, defence pairing for defence pairing, the Bruins are a bit bigger, considerably more experienced and at least as skilled. And Tuukka Rask has outplayed James Reimer in net.
Are the Leafs trying to kick down a locked door when it might be smarter to try to sneak through a window around the back? It’s hard to know, because Carlyle wants the Leafs to lower their collective shoulders.
His team’s dramatic overtime loss Wednesday night coupled with their win in Boston in Game 2 have served to give the Leafs and their fans a sense that they still have a puncher’s chance.
No matter that only 20 times in 229 instances has a team trailing 3-1 in the Stanley Cup playoffs come back to win. No matter that the Leafs have been outscored 10-6 in even-strength situations and trail all playoff teams in shots against per game (though Boston is 15th).
Carlyle points proudly to the Leafs’ physical play — they had a 71-49 edge in hits in Game 3 and lead the series 200-165 – but that proof may obscures an essential truth:
The team that has the puck most is far more prone to be hit. The Leafs may hit the Bruins’ puck-possession master Jaromir Jagr two or three times on a given shift, but that’s often because he hasn’t been dislodged from the puck the first time and while the Leafs checkers are running around, looking for bodies to collide with, the Bruins have a chance to make plays.
And while the Leafs may be abiding by Carlyle’s approach, they are being undone by the fact that Boston has the puck more and take care of it better.
The Leafs lead the playoffs in giveaways by a large margin and are last in percentage of face-offs won.
Still, the game plan is the game plan:
“If we play our game and take away those individual mistakes and maybe cover up a bit more we’ll be in great shape,” said Leafs defenceman Carl Gunnarsson.
The irony is that the Leafs most encouraging stretch of hockey came during the overtime period in Game 4. Without the steady presence of Mark Fraser — out early in the third period after taking a puck to the forehead — there were more minutes for light-hitting but offensively bold Jake Gardiner on the back end.
In sudden death and with the ACC crowd in full roar, the Leafs carried the play in the extra period — pushing forward at every chance with the speed of Gardiner, Phil Kessel, Mikhail Grabovski and Matt Frattin putting Boston on their heels time after time.
It was brilliant hockey and the Leafs were a better team, save for the one sequence that cost them a goal. Still, that outcome aside, are the Leafs missing something by not embracing a more wide-open style against Boston?
Change may be coming whether Carlyle would choose it or not.
With Fraser out, there will be more playing time for Gardiner — who doesn’t hit much but is dynamic with the puck. It will also likely mean John-Michael Liles will return to the lineup, who makes the Leafs less physical but more skilled on the back end.
Carlyle is looking at the bigger picture when it comes to the Leafs overall approach. He believes there’s a certain way to play and it involves being careful with the puck when you have it and finishing checks in high volume when you don’t.
But in embracing that style against the Bruins, are the Leafs playing into the hands of a team that does all of those things a little better than the Leafs do?
Facing elimination, Carlyle wants more of the same from his team. It’s a style that could well win the Stanley Cup one day — it did for the Bruins in 2011 and may yet again. It did for Carlyle’s Anaheim Ducks in 2007.
It’s man’s hockey in Carlyle’s eyes, the way playoff hockey should be played. Over time he’s convinced it will pay dividends. The question is, will it earn a sixth game for the Leafs?