TORONTO – They are starting to look like an outfit no first-round favourite is going to want to face.
Heck, if the Toronto Maple Leafs keep this up they may even find themselves being picked to win a best-of-seven series for the first time in 13 years.
Something has clicked into place here and the overwhelming sentiment radiating from the Leafs dressing room is that they’re riding more than just a hot streak right now. Perhaps it’s as simple as Mike Babcock’s mantra about getting better every day yielding some results.
It’s certainly not a stretch to imagine a team loaded with young top-end talent coming of age 70-plus games into their tenure together.
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“Well I think they’re just learning how good they are,” Babcock said after Thursday’s 4-2 victory over New Jersey.
“You kind of don’t consider them rookies, I guess,” added veteran Brian Boyle.
The signs of progress go well beyond the 7-1-1 stretch that has vaulted Toronto into third place in the Atlantic Division.
It is a feeling and an attitude. An all-in commitment to protecting the puck and grinding through games no matter the circumstances.
This is a team that delivered an emotional 5-2 victory in Columbus on Wednesday night and then travelled home to face the rested, cellar-dwelling Devils – a trap game if there ever was one. And yet the players remained focused as the team charter made its way back to Toronto through the night.
“There really wasn’t a whole lot of extra excitement,” said defenceman Connor Carrick. “I mean we expect to win every night. We do. We always believe if we’re playing well and we’re able to execute a game plan – our coaching staff comes up with a good game plan really every night – we expect to win.
“I’m sure you can say the same thing about all of the top teams.”
He went on to add that it’s something that has developed over time. He didn’t have the same feeling on opening night in Ottawa even as Auston Matthews made a four-goal debut. Fellow rookies Mitchell Marner, William Nylander, Nikita Zaitsev, Connor Brown and Zach Hyman all showed varying levels of promise, but it remained a team that would repeatedly shoot itself in the foot.
Consider that the Leafs have led in games for just shy of 1,800 minutes this season – the third-highest total in the NHL behind only Washington and Columbus.
They’ve trailed for less time than all but five teams, each of which has legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations: The Capitals, Blue Jackets, Wild, Sharks and Blackhawks.
They’ve lost 15 games in overtime or a shootout.
The signs have been there for some time that the Leafs were good. Now the results are starting to match up with the promise.
“We feel a lot more comfortable in our team identity,” said Carrick. “Players are more comfortable in the role they’ve kind of asserted themselves in throughout the lineup. We know that if we can put together a good effort with each individual player a lot of times we do have a good chance against really all the top teams in the league.
“We can play with everybody.”
With nine regular-season games still to play, they’ve put themselves in great position to qualify for the playoffs. Some probability models peg their odds as high as 85 per cent.
If they remain in the No. 2 or 3 slot in the Atlantic Division they’re likely to face Ottawa or Montreal in the first round. Either would be considered a close matchup. Should Toronto fall back to wild-card position, it would be listed as an underdog against the winner of the Presidents’ Trophy – either Washington, Pittsburgh or Columbus.
Where they could pose a real problem for a more established team is matching up at forward.
The Leafs currently boast a lineup featuring six players with at least 50 points – they didn’t have one while finishing 30th overall last season – and they’ve got a coach in Babcock who is as skilled at managing a bench as anyone else in the game.
As Thursday’s win over New Jersey showed, this is a group that has grown closer together. They seem genuinely happy for each other’s accomplishments, with Nylander, Matthews and Marner seemingly rewriting the organization’s record book on a nightly basis, and didn’t waver after a backup goalie Curtis McElhinney surrendered a bad goal three minutes into the game.
As McElhinney pointed out, it was the type of moment that usually deflates a bench. But in this situation “no one was too concerned about it.”
He sees progress as well.
“I think we’re just starting to pay a little more attention to some of the details maybe away from the puck more than anything,” said McElhinney. “The offence is still taking over and getting the points when we need them. Maybe there’s some stuff in the neutral zone and at the far blue line – that’s probably the most important changes that I’m starting to see.”
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Babcock seemed encouraged after warning his players about the danger of a letdown and then watching them grind out a victory in the second half of a back-to-back.
He is a big believer in the importance of positive thought.
“I think you have to learn how to win these games, over and over again,” said Babcock. “You just get so you just expect it. It doesn’t matter if it’s back-to-back, didn’t matter where you played, didn’t matter who you played, you expect to win.
“If you expect to get 80 (per cent) when you’re a kid at school you get 80. If you expect to get 60 you get 60.”
The expectations are rising here and other NHL teams are starting to take notice.
