The Canadiens appear to be right where they like to be, sitting in the underdog role with the entire hockey world writing them off. A lot like last summer, frankly.
Except instead of the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Canadiens draw the Toronto Maple Leafs, essentially splitting Canada in two for a week and a half or so.
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The Canadiens went 3-6-1 against the Maple Leafs this season, allowing 34 goals in those 10 games, so it doesn’t look like much of a matchup. But weird things happen in the playoffs.
To learn a bit more about the Maple Leafs, we are bringing in my boss, James Mirtle, to answer some of my pressing questions on the team. You should be following Mirtle and our Leafs writers Jonas Siegel and Joshua Kloke throughout the series both on Twitter and right here at The Athletic.
Basu: Mirtle, it’s what we’ve always dreamed of. Leafs-Habs in the playoffs. In empty buildings. With you in Toronto and me in Montreal. Dreams. But one thing is certain, this is not exactly a dream matchup for the Canadiens. They need to figure out a way to shut down Auston Matthews, which they have never really been able to do, but there’s a lot more going on here than just Matthews and the historic season he is having, and the Leafs will need more than just him to win the series. So, if you had to identify one other element (besides goaltending, we’ll get to that) the Leafs need to not only beat the Canadiens but to make a deep run here, what would it be?
Mirtle: They need to play the way they have all season, to be honest.
The Leafs didn’t win the North Division by accident. This wasn’t a fluke. They played really, really well, even when they weren’t getting saves and even when Matthews was playing hurt for a stretch and not scoring.
I know there will always be the same “can’t win a round” digs around this Toronto group until they actually, you know, win a round, but this was as convincing a regular season as the Leafs have ever had since I started covering them 14 years ago. This is a better team than the franchise has had since Pat Quinn was coach back before the salary cap was put in.
Compared to the teams of the past few seasons, they’re deeper. They’re much better defensively. And they have a ton more veteran presence throughout the lineup.
They also dominated Montreal and Edmonton during the season, so the path for a playoff run is there in front of them if they don’t get in their own way.
Basu: OK, I said we would get to goaltending, so here we go. Jack Campbell has been a great story for the Leafs this season, but he’s never been on this stage before and if he were to falter, it would hardly be the first time a goaltender struggled in his first trip to the playoffs.
You wrote the definitive story of Campbell’s path to this point, so if there was one thing in his past you could identify that would suggest he is more than ready for this moment, what would it be?
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Mirtle: Here’s what stood out to me about Campbell when I really looked closely at his background: He’s been a pretty good goalie for a while now.
Since resurrecting his career at 26 years old as a backup with the Kings, he’s posted a .918 save percentage in the NHL, including some strong runs on a weak LA team. And he has done nothing but win and make saves with the Leafs, save for a very brief dip this season.
Campbell was known for being a big-game goalie at other levels. He won big internationally as a young netminder. I don’t think it’s out of the question he’s this year’s version of Jordan Binnington, who excels in the postseason despite a limited body of work in the regular season.
Basu: Going further on the Campbell angle, it seems to me the first two games of this series will be more important than usual. I know from the Canadiens’ side, they’ve had a certain fragility about them all season when falling behind in games, so I can only imagine how that might manifest itself if they go down 0-2 in the series.
But from a Leafs perspective, considering all the expectations and the recent history and the situation in goal, how much importance do you put on Game 1 for them? It’s just one game, I know, but is it really just one game in this case?
Mirtle: I think the Leafs will be OK dropping a game. They’re not as fragile as they’ve been in the past. But if they get stomped 5-1 or something, and Campbell isn’t good, and there’s a physical factor at work … maybe the seed of doubt gets planted.
I don’t see that happening here. There’s just a different swagger about this group that hasn’t been there in the past. And for all the talk about the Leafs “choking” in the playoffs, they were playing outstanding teams in Washington and Boston (twice) in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Those series, the Leafs were the underdog. That’s not at all the case here.
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Where the Leafs got into trouble last season in the play-in round against Columbus, however, was they suddenly couldn’t score. If Carey Price plays out of his mind, and the Leafs’ big guns come up empty, that’s the best-case scenario for Montreal early in the series.
Basu: I think a big part of what has to go right for the Canadiens is to win the bottom-six forward matchup. How do you see those lines being deployed for Toronto and what do you think of that specific area of the matchup?
Mirtle: I think you’re going to see Riley Nash factor in as the 3C on a shutdown line with Ilya Mikheyev and Alex Kerfoot, and then an OGWAC (Old Guy Without a Cup) line of Joe Thornton, Jason Spezza and Wayne Simmonds on the fourth group.
Sheldon Keefe wants a third line he can give tough assignments, for two reasons. 1. That will take some of the checking/defensive load off of Matthews and Marner, freeing them up to do more damage offensively. And 2. It will allow the Leafs to deploy John Tavares and William Nylander against a bottom-six line and, presumably, outscore them.
So this series won’t really be top six versus top six and bottom six versus bottom six. Toronto will be hoping to get their best players against some favourable matchups, especially at home. And to shelter the old guys, who have done a pretty solid job of generating offence in soft minutes this year.
Basu: Here’s one that’s straightforward, but at the same time, not. What is up with Morgan Rielly? I mean, doesn’t seem all that bad to me, but sure doesn’t sound like that’s the prevailing narrative …
Mirtle: He has struggled. As good as his D partner T.J. Brodie has been in his first season as a Leaf, it’s felt like he’s had to cover for Rielly an obscene amount, often as the lone man back on two-on-ones that sometimes turn into goals against.
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Rielly had a tough season last year, but it was chalked up to playing hurt all season. If it’s still an injury bothering him, no one has said, but that’s a possibility. A scary one, given the number of minutes he plays.
Where Rielly seems to have really laboured of late is on the power play, which works as a segue I think …
Basu: Here’s another that’s pretty straightforward, but how can you possibly explain the ineptitude of the Maple Leafs’ power play? And further to that, do you think those struggles open them to teams taking liberties on them without having to fear that power play?
Mirtle: Second question first: Yes. If I were another team, I would not fear the Leafs’ power play right now. Which is very, very strange to say.
The Leafs have scored on just 8 percent of their power plays going back the last 30 games of the season! Before that point, they were basically unstoppable five-on-four, and it looked like they were going to win a lot of games on the man advantage.
It’s really in their heads right now. Rielly’s lack of a punishing shot from the point is a problem but hardly the only one. The only positive here is the Leafs hardly ever take or draw penalties, so special teams are often less of a factor in their games than your average NHL game.
But if Montreal tries to change that equation and start filling the penalty box, it’ll potentially limit the Leafs ability to dominate at even strength.
That said, if the light bulb ever comes back on, Toronto has enough weapons that a few individual efforts could put them on the board if the Canadiens get too careless.
Basu: All right, I need to ask a Matthews question because he is clearly the most important player in the series.
But judging by how the Leafs struggled to score in the play-in last year, I’m wondering how much other guys feed off Matthews’ ability to score so consistently? I was looking at that play-in series last year and he had 27 shots on goal in five games, which is pretty darned good. But only two went in, and the team, in general, struggled to finish.
I guess the real question is, how much of a burden do you think Matthews has based on the ridiculously high bar he has set for himself?
Mirtle: There’s a burden, for sure, but I don’t really doubt that he’ll produce in this situation. Regardless of what the numbers say, he was really, really good against the Blue Jackets last year. It was such a weird series overall, with Toronto shooting 2 percent at even strength. I have a hard time seeing that duplicated here.
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Plus Matthews’ season has been ridiculous this year, and even with a pretty serious wrist injury, he ran away with the goal-scoring crown and made a lot of pretty good netminders look silly.
He very clearly took another step in terms of his skating, his strength, his defensive play and even his goal scoring, and he was operating at a pretty high level already before this.
Matthews has 12 goals in 25 career playoff games, and he’s a far more effective player than he was three or four years ago, when he was still a kid. He’s just one of those athletes that’s going to will himself to make a significant impact at this time of year.
And it’s not like he’s entirely alone, either. Mitch Marner had a monster year and feeds off Matthews all the time, so that top line should be a load, no matter what.
The only question is, can those two carry their teammates offensively if the bottom nine forwards are underwhelming like they were last season against Columbus?
I don’t rule it out.
Basu: I’ll finish with this, how much will you miss me during this series?
Mirtle: I won’t miss you skipping out early and not paying the tab at the whiskey bar, I’ll say that much.
In all seriousness, it would be amazing to be there in person, as a fan of the sport. Here’s hoping this is the first of many postseason meetings for these franchises in the years to come.
Basu: That was a fun, inexpensive night. Thanks, James, for this and for picking up that tab.
For more with James, check out this series preview podcast with our Leafs and Habs writers.
(Top photo of Auston Matthews and Phillip Danault: Mark Blinch / NHLI via Getty Images)