Why Leafs-Lightning is most important regular-season game of Core Four era

It may sound hyperbolic, but there’s a case to be made that Wednesday’s game versus Tampa Bay is the most important regular-season contest of the Core Four era.

So, let’s make it.

On Tuesday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs went into Florida and got treated the way the Panthers have treated opponents in seven of their last eight playoff series. They were constantly above the Leafs, solidly on the defensive side of the play. The Leafs had to get through a body to skate anywhere, and those bodies don’t move — even if you ask them nicely.

Pick your metric of choice, and it was ugly. Via Sportlogiq: shots were 37-18, expected goals were 4.19 to 1.69, Florida carried the “time with puck in offensive zone” stat by over seven minutes at even strength, and most tellingly, the “puck battles won” percentage was 70.5 to 29.5 in the Cats’ favour.

The Panthers didn’t even have Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett or Aaron Ekblad.

The conclusion here after a season of hockey is that all things being equal — both teams being healthy and getting an equal amount of puck luck — Florida would be a pretty heavy favourite in a best-of-seven versus the Leafs. That’s not just my opinion, it will be the majority opinion and it will be reflected in the Vegas odds.

Now, I’m gonna ask you to open your mind and embrace a concept that isn’t so neat and tidy here, so take a breath.

My point with all the above is that the Panthers are a matchup nightmare for the Leafs. But that’s not to say that the Panthers are necessarily the better team at large. They can be bad for the Leafs, while the Leafs are still good enough to be considered Cup contenders.

That’s because the league has 32 teams — 16 in the playoffs — and each team has to find a way through 31 other lineup constitutions, and this season’s Leafs have made the case that they can hang with just about anyone. After 82 games, the Leafs will likely finish with more points than Florida against said 31 teams, and matchup hockey is weird.

• Florida is 3-1-0 vs. Toronto

• Toronto is 3-0-0 vs. Tampa Bay

• Montreal is 4-0-0 vs. Florida

• Ottawa is 3-0-0 vs. Toronto

So again, it’s that matchup thing I’m talking about. The Panthers are built to prey on the Leafs’ main weakness, which I think it’s safe to say mostly revolves around their core’s ability to will their way through and out-battle a truly heavy opponent in a playoff-style environment. We’ve seen the results for years, and acting like those results are irrelevant would be analytical negligence. It’s a problem for Toronto.

So, the Leafs have to avoid Florida.

By beating Tampa Bay on Wednesday night, the Leafs could all but guarantee themselves the division, as it would leave Tampa Bay four points back with four games to go, with Toronto in possession of the tiebreakers. That would mean the Leafs could go 2-2 down the stretch while the Lightning go 4-0, and they’d still win the division. A record of 3-1 from Tampa would mean the Leafs could claim the division by going 1-3, and so on.

You get the picture — beat Tampa and win the Atlantic for the first time in the Core Four era. That in itself would be worth celebrating.

A divisional win would also get the Leafs one of Ottawa or Montreal, who, of course, are not pushovers. But let’s speak frankly here: I think even Ottawa and Montreal would be the first to tell you “We’re not Florida or Tampa Bay.” The Florida teams have recent Stanley Cup pedigree, the Bolts are the best team in the East since early February, and we just went over what the Panthers are to the Leafs.

When you get to the playoffs, every team left is good, so yes, the Leafs would be given a tough series by either Canadian opponent, but clearly, they would be the favourite.

In the most likely outcome were they to win the Atlantic — a Battle of Ontario — the Leafs would be facing a fairly mid offensive team, as the Sens sit 20th in goals per game. With the way the Leafs have excelled at taking away high-danger chances since adding Brandon Carlo, and the question marks around Linus Ullmark, there would be a path through for them. It’s not a given, but let’s not pretend the matchup is equally as challenging as Florida or Tampa Bay.

The best part about a series against Ottawa or Montreal is if the Leafs handled their business and did get through, Florida and Tampa would have to endure the dogfight that is … Florida and Tampa. That would mean that the husk of whichever team they’d get next would be weakened from a significant battle. Florida is a great team, but it’s not the most dynamically talented team out there, so the value gained by them having even one or two injuries is huge. That was evidenced by their showing in Toronto on April 2 without Aleksander Barkov. The Leafs would have a much better chance versus a softened Panthers team.

Now, if the Leafs lose to Tampa Bay on Wednesday night, the two would be tied for the division lead in points, but the Leafs would lose on the first tiebreaker, regulation wins (assuming the Lightning got the win in regulation). The Lightning are hot and have more home games and non-playoff opponents remaining in their final four. It wouldn’t be a lock, but it would greatly increase the Leafs’ odds of getting a first-round matchup with Florida, which is said to be getting Bennett back in Game 1, maybe Tkachuk too, and Ekblad back in Game 3. You’d be getting them at full force within a few games, and we’ve covered how I think that would go.

I recently wrote a piece where I described the Leafs as one of the 11 or so teams that I think could win the Stanley Cup this year. More than ever, luck and the path a team has in front are going to factor into which “quite good” team reaches the mountaintop.

To take it further: let’s say the Leafs don’t get a softer matchup to start, and they draw Florida, and they lose, well — it would mean the end of the Core Four. Mitch Marner would almost certainly be gone, by some form of mutual separation, and John Tavares would be on the sidelines unsigned too. The chorus to pick new horses to ride would be loud.

But if this core finally breaks through and wins, we may see a world where management and fans start to truly believe, where Matthew Knies and Bobby McMann grow into valued depth scorers, and where the Leafs extend the core and use the rising cap to tangibly add around them in the years ahead. There could be numerous more runs for the team in the future.

So much of that new direction hinges on playoff success, which hinges on seeding, which hinges on Wednesday night versus Tampa.

No, the team won’t look at it like this internally — that’s for us to do. But the view from 30,000 feet shows two very divergent paths for this team, and they’ll likely start heading down one of the two directions based the game against the Lightning.

It may just be a regular-season game, one of 82, but it might also hint at a direction for the future of the team with which Leafs fans have become all too familiar.

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