Will the trend toward Quality over Quantity continue?
I believe I have stated quite clearly during our check-ins that the Boston Bruins are, to use a mild exaggeration, selecting their places. Having said that, it appears that this year—the closing of their centers, etc.—is overstating things more than previous ones. This much is already known to you. They don’t take many shots, but when they do, they make them matter. The numbers support this. They rank middle to slightly above average of the pack in terms of quality, but they are in the bottom half of the league in terms of shots attempted and unblocked shot attempts per sixty. That is not novel. Furthermore, you shouldn’t be shocked to hear that the Leafs have typically performed better at that than Boston.
If there’s one comfort you can draw from this two teams’ regular season encounter, it’s that Boston consistently finds a way to hard counter the Leafs. Granted, the Leafs have outperformed the Bruins in terms of numbers since January (at least according to the counts), but that was always sort of…true regardless of the series they were in? 2018 was most likely your year to defeat them, but Toronto’s Bruins kind of pulled it out of the bag. Are you convinced that, despite seeming all done up, you are all that on paper?
The Boston Bruins will definitely be up against it this time around in terms of offensive output, but if they are prepared to attack the middle of the ice and do what they did a great deal in the regular season—make Woll/Samsonov make saves in close—they can exploit a big but ultimately vulnerable defense.
Can you make the power play function once more?
For a little more than a month now, the Bruins’ power play has been quite dismal. The Leafs are the team that could generate some momentum in order to address it.
Throughout the entire season, Toronto’s PK has been brutal regardless of who is starting. An adequate power play has the potential to be a major differentiator in defeating the Leafs, since the playoffs transform players into their ultimate version – the pinnacle of their game. But they really must make it there. And that entails pressuring that specific PK to make poor choices frequently and early on. Puck movement needs to rapidly make these guys go into a panic. Space must be forced to open.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have, at least in the eyes of their supporters and perhaps more concerningly for the team’s manager, been losing to the same team for the previous five years running. Therefore, the Boston Bruins have a distinct advantage over these guys in terms of drawing multiple penalties from them. Additionally, the Bruins’ reputation for extracurricular hockey precedes them, and the Leafs believe they are ready. It’s highly likely that the Boston Bruins can suck these guys into making incredibly stupid decisions just by virtue of their dislike for the Toronto Maple Leafs and their idea of them that may not necessarily reflect reality.
The Bruins must demonstrate to them that thinking it was true in the first place was not only incorrect, but also intentionally harmful.
Is it possible to block Matthews and Marner once more?
I must state unequivocally that Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews are the driving forces behind the Toronto Maple Leafs. After this, my comments on these guys are primarily the result of fan opinion taking over. They are often worth the money because they are incredibly excellent hockey players.
The problem with their money, though, goes beyond a reality that the Leafs have repeatedly encountered: when it comes down to a Best of 7, with the season on the line, the Boston Bruins always manage to render their most valuable players almost useless. Although it’s possible that some of it is because they weren’t meant for this—at least in Marner’s case, I believe that to be true—the truth
It should work, we are convinced of that, but given how much the Bruins have struggled with transition this season—zone exits in particular—they would be well to find out a way to turn their woefully ineffective defense into a trap for their two most dangerous blue-and-white players. Charlie McAvoy, in particular, hasn’t had the best of luck with Matthews, so it could be better for him to shut down the Tavares line, freeing up Lindholm and Carlo to concentrate on stopping the Leafs onslaught at its source.
Okay, but honestly, how are you going to handle the goaltending?
Regarding their goaltender rotation strategy, Boston has been a little evasive.
Don Sweeney and Jim Montgomery have hinted that they would genuinely platoon the goalies—that is, make a clear decision and stick to it.
Right now, I’m not envious of either of them.
They’re in a strange situation since, among a slew of historically horrific performances, their playoff run last year was derailed by waiting much too long to replace their goalie when they was clearly hurt. Hello, Connor Clifton in Game 6 and Derek.), so doing what it feels like everyone and their mother wants to see—platooning the goalies since that worked throughout the season—is very much on the table. If both men are displaying the same level of
The sole drawback is…if it doesn’t function. If one player clearly outplays the other and forces the other to wait to enter the game in order to save his friend, then the series is being artificially inflated. According to their results, as of the previous few games, Ullmark is definitely outperforming Swayman by a large margin, so you might want to put that specific experiment on hold for a series or two. Linus Ullmark should be the response. He is having fun.920+ games with SV% to Swayman’s.900 SV%, at least in the previous five encounters. Why shouldn’t it be Ullmark, who faced the Leafs for almost the whole season and whom they ultimately defeated with great ease? He’s definitely the solution!
Until he wasn’t, anyway.
What then do you do?
Perhaps you decide to learn right away.
Tonight, we’ll have to watch how Coach Monty handles this.
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