Leafs are playing a Low Event Hockey.
They are deploying a different type of playstyle, one that seems to bogged them down a bit during pretty critical parts of the game, if you watched their games vs Ottawa, you can see how at times Ottawa looked like a better team and it seemed things were about to break on their favor.
We played against high energy superstars like MC David, Draisaitl, and Hyman, none of the Leafs offense measures up to these players, in the way that they hassle and go after their puck, Leafs offense have high skills accompanied with a high degree of finesse.
This is where I bring in Kutcherov, Point and Guentzle, these are within the same realm, and we were able to stop them in their tracks.
The Leafs to me is the least physical offensive forwards we are about the see, our game style is designed precisely for this type of players, we will frustrate them physically and they will have to look for answers somewhere else.
The Leafs advantages are in the small spaces, crowding the front of the net, in games with Ottawa, I watched the Ottawa defenders unable to move them out the front of the net or pay less attention to those details, we got the horses to stop them from doing that. Jones, Mikola, Ekblad, Forsling, Kulikov, etc.
We will see OEL in couple of fights, and being physical all the way, I noticed him in the Ottawa series, he was a bit like Tkatchuck, over the top on being physical and he ended it many times in the penalty box because of it.
I can see the score being low on both sides and if the leafs stay with playing a low event type hockey, I like our chances very much, we are structural design for that type of hockey. specially now, that we have noticed the Panthers playing an even more responsible game with less penalties.
As the last round, it is important to steal at least 1 game, preferably the first game, until Ekblad returns, winning the first game will crush the spirit of the center of the universe, The Maple Leafs.
I am expecting to see the goals to come from everywhere, in a distributed manner, that was what kept Tampa out of balance, we need to use the same recipe.
I do not foresee any changes in the line up or changes in the deployed strategy, we are playing a very similar team like Tampa, with less physicality.
