NHL playoffs: New-look Leafs impervious to pressure of years past

At their best, the Toronto Maple Leafs are an assembly of some of the world’s best hockey players, which renders their six consecutive failures in the first round a darkly hilarious joke to the neutral observer. Toronto continually established itself among the best regular-season teams, only for that distinction to be rendered effectively meaningless when the games mattered.

Through this line of thinking, there’s a fallacy to assume all of these Maple Leafs teams were built equally. In a season where a first-round exit may cause some heads to roll, the Maple Leafs acquired Ryan O’Reilly, Noel Acciari and Jake McCabe at the deadline, then signed 20-year-old top prospect Matthew Knies to an entry-level contract just before the regular season ended.

The new-look Maple Leafs are impervious to the pressure that overwhelmed the previous six incarnations of the team and that was proven in a 4-3 overtime victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday in arguably the biggest win of this era. O’Reilly tipped a faceoff win back to Morgan Rielly — coming off the best game of his career in Game 2 — and the Maple Leafs’ longest-tenured player wired a wrist shot past Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy for the decisive winner, giving the Maple Leafs a 2-1 series advantage entering Monday’s Game 4.

There are other elements that make this Maple Leafs team different from the ghosts of yesteryear and they don’t win this game without the heroics of Ilya Samsonov. The goalie was signed to a one-year, $1.8 million contract in the summer, a show-me deal after the Capitals gave him every opportunity to become the starter of the future and he failed to impress. Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas effectively took a bet on Samsonov’s first-round pedigree and after a shaky first period on Saturday, the 26-year-old shut the door.

Samsonov robbed Tanner Jeannot on a breakaway in the second period, then made a sprawling save on Victor Hedman minutes later. Nick Paul, the Lightning’s Game 7 hero against the Leafs in 2022, walked in unimpeded with a 3-2 lead in the third period and Samsonov rose to the occasion again. He also easily handled a high-danger backhand from Nikita Kucherov in the overtime period and has provided the quality goaltending that had eluded the Maple Leafs in their previous postseason runs.

Toronto had no business winning this game, as it was outshot 39-27. Samsonov posted 11 high-danger saves in 12 opportunities. And that’s really just it: the Lightning were the better team, they constantly posed a threat and were a minute away from grabbing a 2-1 series lead with another home game on Monday. Without Samsonov, none of the momentum swinging back in the Maple Leafs’ favour is possible.

O’Reilly was acquired in large part due to his playoff pedigree and it’s easy to see why another former captain in the room was of paramount importance to the Maple Leafs. With the game on the line, O’Reilly tucked home a rebound from a William Nylander shot as Samsonov could only watch from the bench with exactly one minute left in the third period.

During the 2019 season with the St. Louis Blues, O’Reilly won the Selke, Conn Smythe Trophy and the Stanley Cup. A pivotal Game 3 may mean everything to the Maple Leafs but the moment wasn’t too big for him. This is exactly why the Maple Leafs pushed their chips all in to acquire him and Acciari, who scored the game’s opening goal after receiving a feed from Knies.

Knies was playing college hockey at the start of the month as a standout for the NCAA’s Minnesota Golden Gophers, losing in the national title game on April 8. When Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews played their first playoff games for the Maple Leafs, Knies was a 15-year-old, still two seasons away from making his debut in the United States Hockey League. There’s no reason why Knies should carry the weight of failed expectations with him and he was a revelation in Game 3.

Starting out on a line with O’Reilly and Acciari, Knies set up the latter with a patient feed that belied his years. Acciari wired a low shot past Vasilevskiy for the game’s opening goal as Knies received his first-ever playoff point. This was just the start of things to come.

The underlying numbers for this line weren’t particularly good but you’d have to fundamentally misunderstand the game of hockey if you thought O’Reilly and Knies didn’t make a difference. Knies constantly earned promotions throughout the game. He flanked Matthews and Marner during a critical third-period offensive zone faceoff with fewer than five minutes remaining, and when the Maple Leafs emptied their net, Knies was considered among the team’s best six skaters. He even held his own on several shifts against the high-octane Kucherov-Point-Stamkos line. He was a constant force, unweighted by the ramifications of the contest.

If one of the defining qualities of the 2022-23 Maple Leafs is their improved roster flexibility, then Knies proved he could be shifted throughout the lineup and continue to play a highly impactful game. He used his frame, hockey intelligence and high-end skill to give the Lightning fits. Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe told reporters prior to Game 2 that Knies wasn’t expected to be a savior but for a night, the 20-year-old was easily one of the Maple Leafs’ best players in a match that may be a turning point for this iteration of the franchise.

It wasn’t completely about the new guys, though. Matthews deflected home a Marner rocket for Toronto’s second goal of the evening and the reigning Hart Trophy winner dropped the gloves with Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos for the first fight of his career, spurred by a sequence where Rielly sent Brayden Point flying into the boards. Nylander recorded a game-high seven shots and was the Maple Leafs’ most dangerous offensive player overall.

You could look at the stats, you could look at game flow, you could exercise common sense or revert to previous history and all four approaches would dictate that the Maple Leafs probably should have lost Game 3. But this isn’t the same team as last year and the new-look Leafs are seemingly unfazed by the pressure that proved to be overwhelming for six consecutive years.