The Tampa Bay Lightning embarrassed the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 1 on Tuesday. The final score at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto: 7-3. Here are four areas the Leafs must address in Game 2 - which goes Thursday - and beyond.
Collective headspace
Let's get this out of the way off the top: The on-ice officials weren't kind to the Leafs in Game 1. They botched multiple calls, most notably the cross-checking and slashing penalties on Luke Schenn and David Kampf midway through the second period. Poor officiating undoubtedly affected the final score.
Still, Toronto did itself no favors in the discipline department. T.J. Brodie's holding infraction in the first and Michael Bunting's head hit in the second jump off the page as particularly unnecessary and, in the latter case, stupid.
Tampa made Toronto pay to the tune of four goals in just 10 power-play minutes. Plain and simple, if you give power-play dynamos Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov that much time to cook, you're going to surrender goals.
Of course, the mental lapses weren't limited to penalties. The Leafs were flat-out terrible in the opening 10 minutes Tuesday and then allowed goals in the dying seconds of both the first and second periods. It's drilled into hockey players from a young age to start games on time and finish periods strong, and the Leafs did neither to begin a series with so much on the line.
Hesitant, tentative, nervous, afraid, and uninspired are just some words to describe the Leafs at their worst moments in Game 1. That's ultimately what the fans and media will remember from that 60-minute debacle: the "demons" of playoffs past seemingly occupying the collective headspace of many Leafs.
"They've got demons in their head, in their car, under their f-----g beds, everywhere they turn there's a f-----g demon. The biggest obstacle this team has now is themselves," former Leafs assistant coach Paul MacLean memorably told head coach Sheldon Keefe during an episode of the "All or Nothing" documentary chronicling Toronto's 2020-21 season.
Whatever's going on mentally needs to be rectified ASAP.
The forecheck
Ryan McDonagh is long gone. Same goes for Jan Rutta and Cal Foote.
The Lightning blue line, a shell of its former self, was shaky at points during the regular season, with depth players occupying larger roles than they should. It's an area ripe for exposure over the course of a seven-game series.
Then Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak left Game 1 due to injury after skating for only seven and nine minutes, respectively. Tampa's four remaining defensemen thus logged tons of ice - 26 minutes for Mikhail Sergachev, 24 each for Ian Cole and Darren Raddysh, and 18 for Nick Perbix.
To put the depleted back end into perspective: In the third period, with Sergachev in the box, Cole - who's at best a third-pairing guy on any playoff squad - killed the entire two-minute penalty. It was out of necessity.
Somehow, the four-man Tampa blue line didn't just survive Game 1, it actually thrived. That's probably more of an insult to the Leafs' forwards than a compliment to the Lightning's defensemen. How do you not capitalize?
Even before Hedman and Cernak went down, it was crystal clear Toronto needed to apply constant pressure on the forecheck. Get sticks in passing lanes. Throw weight around. Force them to make mistakes - a smothering attack should expose the lack of experience and talent beyond Hedman and Sergachev. (Hedman, who hasn't been himself all year, is vulnerable too.)
In Game 1, Sergachev was the target of five hits, Raddysh absorbed four, Perbix and Cole took two each, Cernak one, and Hedman zero. (The hit on Cernak may lead to a suspension for Bunting.) As long as the checks are legal, those numbers need to climb. The Lightning need to be worn down.
Bottom-six defense
Corey Perry is one-third of a crusty, old Lightning forward line the Leafs can easily exploit in this series. After all, it's Toronto, not Tampa, that boasts the faster, more versatile, and overall objectively better bottom-six contingent.
At least that's how it looks on paper ...
Perry was arguably the best player on the ice in Game 1, bagging a goal and adding two primary assists in less than 14 minutes of action. The soon-to-be 38-year-old, who looked washed-up for stretches of his 18th NHL regular season, led Tampa with seven shots on goal and two drawn penalties. Perry's a clutch player, but nobody predicted this level of impact out of the gates.
Perry, Pat Maroon, and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare won the five-on-five matchup against Zach Aston-Reese, Sam Lafferty, and Kampf. The real Perry victim, however, was defenseman Justin Holl, who was on the ice each time Perry collected a point (two came on the power play). It gets worse: Holl finished the night with a minus-six goal differential - six against, zero for.
For Game 2, Keefe may go with Joseph Woll over Ilya Samsonov between the pipes. He also may be forced to replace a suspended Bunting up front. And he most definitely should replace Holl with Timothy Liljegren. Holl, who fumbled pucks and made poor reads in the defensive zone all night, can't be trusted after that lowly showing.
To that end, the Leafs can't afford to let Perry, a fourth-liner, dominate another game. They bulked up at forward before the trade deadline to overwhelm the opponent, not to be overwhelmed by a player ostensibly past his prime.
Top-six offense
In the regular season, the Leafs averaged 58 shot attempts per game - 32 shots on goal, 13 blocked shots, and 13 missed shots. In Game 1, Toronto recorded 64 attempts - 31 on goal, 20 blocked, and 13 missed.
The difference: clogged shooting lanes.
Auston Matthews for the most part looked dangerous Tuesday. He pitched in a pair of assists and more than held his own defensively. Yet the Leafs' best player managed to get only two of seven attempts on target. William Nylander contributed a tally, but half of his eight attempts didn't make it on goal. Mitch Marner, who racked up three assists, was otherwise ineffective on the attack while his flip-pass attempt in the first ultimately led to Tampa's second goal.
As a group, Toronto's big guns - Matthews, Nylander, Marner, John Tavares, Ryan O'Reilly - were fine in the opener. It was the others, from Holl, Brodie, and fellow defenseman Mark Giordano to Bunting and Samsonov, who cost the Leafs. That said, fine isn't good enough for world-class players - not at this time of year and certainly not within the context of the club's playoff history.
The Leafs were heavy favorites ahead of puck drop because the offensive pop keeps coming. They have multiple layers of game-breaking talent. Matthews and the other guns must find a way to break through the defensive shell.
Toronto beat Tampa 5-0 in last year's Game 1, then lost the series in seven games. Will another Game 1 become irrelevant by series end?
John Matisz is theScore's senior NHL writer. Follow John on Twitter (@MatiszJohn) or contact him via email (john.matisz@thescore.com).
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