2023 NHL playoff preview: Maple Leafs vs. Lightning

TAMPA, FL - APRIL 11: Victor Hedman #77 of the Tampa Bay Lightning against William Nylander #88 of the Toronto Maple Leafs during the second period at Amalie Arena on April 11, 2023 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Carlson/NHLI via Getty Images)
By The Athletic NHL Staff
Apr 14, 2023

By Dom Luszczyszyn, Shayna Goldman and Sean Gentille

It’s a matchup that’s been practically set in stone since November between two Atlantic Division behemoths, a much-awaited sequel to last year’s hotly-contested opening-round classic.

It’s two of the league’s best teams, each with something to prove. One wants to show they can get it done when it counts. The other wants to show they’re not done yet.

It’s the Maple Leafs. It’s the Lightning. And it’s going to be another series for the ages.


The Odds

It’s the same story as last year: the odds don’t matter. Not when it comes to the Leafs and the opening round where this is now their fourth straight series as favorites. They couldn’t get it done against Columbus. Or Montreal. Or Tampa Bay last year. They get another shot this year at the Lightning.

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Toronto’s odds of winning were 62 percent last year meaning the team is only barely more likely to beat Tampa Bay compared to a year ago. That actually undersells things a bit as our new model believes that series should’ve been much closer at 56 percent instead of 62 percent.

This looks like a very different Leafs team, one that has the fortitude and will to get the job done on top of the obvious talent level. That started with last year’s series loss to the Lightning, a series where they looked equally matched to the best playoff team of the past decade. They are the deserved favorites after the season they’ve had where they finished 13 points ahead of Tampa Bay.

But these odds have a lot more to do with Tampa Bay than they have to do with Toronto. The Lightning also look like a very different team — and not in a good way.

This year it really felt like the Lightning took their foot off the gas down the stretch knowing they were locked into this matchup. Saving themselves for the real season. These odds don’t reflect any potential “switch-flipping” ability the Lightning might possess. If that’s something this current iteration is capable of, and we have no reason to not give the Lightning the benefit of the doubt, a 37 percent chance of winning this series likely undersells Tampa Bay.


The Numbers

Both teams’ play both below and at the surface level supports the idea that the Maple Leafs are the favorite.

At five-on-five, Toronto has a slight edge in offensive creation on the season as a whole from a quality and quantity standpoint. A lot of that stems from their neutral zone play, and how they turn entries into scoring chances. Tampa’s a bit more balanced in their offensive creation between transitional offense and their cycle game, the latter being their true advantage and something that tends to be important come playoff time.

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The Lightning are also the better team at suppressing their opponents’ chances off the forecheck and cycle, while Toronto limits rush chances against. Overall back in the defensive zone, the Maple Leafs rank as the better team when it comes to what they allow back in terms of shots, quality looks, and actual goals against — the latter being the most surprising when considering the goalies on each side of this series.

What each team has done season-wide matters heading into the series, but so does what they’ve done lately — especially considering the changes the Maple Leafs made to their roster at the deadline, and the way the Lightning backslid recently. While Toronto seems to have found their footing since tweaking the roster, the Lightning have struggled to break even at five-on-five lately, and haven’t been outperforming the results either.

That only strengthens the Maple Leafs’ case for being the favorite, and their special teams play adds to it.

Toronto creates a higher clip of quality chances on the power play, but needs help in the finishing department. The shooting talent is there, the results just aren’t where they could be. Tampa Bay’s the opposite; their power play’s a consistent threat and their finishing ability is a key reason why.

On the flip side, Tampa Bay allows more on the penalty kill than Toronto. While their goaltending helps save more than expected, it’s more than what the Maple Leafs tend to give up. That goaltending outperforming the penalty kill makes for a matchup to watch against a power-play unit that doesn’t convert as often as they should.


The Big Question

Is this finally the year that the Leafs break through?

If you’re surprised, you haven’t been paying attention. The question and its answer — for this particular group — haven’t materially changed since 2017-18, the second time they made the playoffs in the Auston Matthews Era. The previous season represented the start of something; Toronto jumped from 69 points to 95 and managed six first-round games against a Cup-caliber Capitals team. No shame there. Breakthroughs tend to exist in the eye of the beholder, but a climb that steep is as close to undeniable as you can get.

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Since then, though, if you were to boil the Leafs’ seasons down to the same one-sentence question, the best answer you could get is a qualified “no.” In 2017-18, they hit the 105-point mark and played a seventh game against Boston. Is that a breakthrough? Nope. They added John Tavares for the next season, then lost to the Bruins in another Game 7. A qualifying-round loss to Columbus? Another nope. Going down in seven against a “North Division” “playoff team” that had won 24 of 56 games? The biggest of nopes.

Last spring, though, felt like a meaningful variation on the theme. Matthews had turned in an MVP season. Neither he nor any of the team’s best players vanished, from the scoresheet or otherwise, once the playoffs rolled around. They were up 3-2 against the Lightning, then lost a pair of one-goal games — one in OT, then an eliminator in which their skaters largely outplayed Tampa Bay’s. Results matter. Close losses are still losses, but incremental progress is still progress. And still, franchises laced with this sort of talent and burdened with this sort of history can’t survive on incremental progress alone. The vibes in a handshake line can only go so far.

So now, here the Leafs are, asking themselves the same question and seeing plenty of relevant answers pointing in a more pleasant direction. Over their last dozen games, Toronto hovered near the top of the league in expected goals percentage; Tampa was in the 20s over that same space. Matthews has rounded into something approaching peak form. Secondary players are turning chances into goals. Two of their defensive pairs (Jake McCabeT.J. Brodie, Mark GiordanoJustin Holl) have been outstanding.

And maybe most importantly, they grinded out an April 11 win against Tampa Bay in a game that clearly mattered to both sides. That Lightning “switch” that everyone loves to bring up? It appeared to have been flipped, and the Leafs dealt with it all the same without two of their best players. The results have been outstanding, in short, and Toronto has gotten them in part by engaging in playoff-style hockey. It’s a cliche, but it’s true.

What does that mean? Maybe nothing more than that the pump is more primed than ever for a backbreaking, franchise-altering series loss. Portions of the fanbase and the hockey world at large, no doubt, believe this to be true. There are reasons, largely goalie-related, that those hunches are … well-founded enough, let’s say. There’s only one way to prove them wrong.


The X-Factor

Can Victor Hedman flip the switch?

Ah, “the switch.” Nobody embodies the concept more than Hedman, a future first-ballot Hall of Famer who has seemed to figure out exactly when to shift into top gear. This season, though, things have seemed a bit different.

What we’ve seen from Hedman, most notably during the 2019-20 postseason, has been an ability to go from “really good” to “all-galaxy.” During the Lightning’s first Cup run, he augmented his standard results — outstanding all-around five-on-five impacts buoyed by his effects on the Lightning’s offense and a remarkable workload — with some once-in-a-generation point production. Last season, Final loss aside, brought more of the same. He has a knack for leveling up.

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This time around, the Lightning would likely settle for him improving on “Is, uh, everything OK?” After years of having Ryan McDonagh around to eat tough minutes and Jan Rutta, largely, to his right, Hedman is sixth this season among Tampa’s regular defensemen in expected goals percentage and third in actual goals percentage, largely because their defensive results with him on the ice have sunk. Cernak, Sergachev and Cole all have faced tougher competition. His average Game Score puts him in the 70s among D-men league-wide.

The “why” here is an open question. His tracking stats, via Corey Sznajder, aren’t dramatically worse, though opponents are more successfully carrying the puck in against him. Is Hedman fighting an injury? Is he biding his time? Or is “the switch” out of reach?


The Rosters

Offensive and Defensive Rating explainer

On paper, there are a lot of reasons to prefer the Leafs in this series. On paper that’s been the case for the last three Leafs opening-round series. That hasn’t changed this year where Toronto’s skaters have a sizable advantage to Tampa Bay’s at both forward and defense — at both ends of the ice.

Up top both teams are led by an elite dynamic duo: Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner for the Leafs and Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov for the Lightning. Both duos will create a similar amount of offense for their respective teams, but the key difference is the defensive acumen that both Matthews and Marner possess that Point and Kucherov lack. The Leafs duo have both been on the fringes of the Selke conversation in back-to-back years and that’s the main separator here. 

At five-on-five Matthews and Marner earned over 60 percent of the goals at five-on-five the last two years while Point and Kucherov have been at 55 percent or less. Defense is the difference there and it’s a sneaky flaw in Kucherov’s game. Over the last two seasons Kucherov’s relative impact on expected goals against ranks ninth last in the league.

That’s the case throughout the top six where Nick Paul is Tampa Bay’s only above-average defensive contributor, but that comes with an offensive sacrifice. The Leafs have four including Ryan O’Reilly, Toronto’s big deadline splash and a former Selke winner. He and Paul are projected to be on equal footing defensively, but O’Reilly adds more offensively. 

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There are a lot of similarities throughout the lineup in terms of construction, including a clear-cut dichotomy between the top six and bottom six. Up top Michael Bunting and Brandon Hagel provide chippy, efficient offense next to the top duo. John Tavares and Steven Stamkos are still cooking and have shifted to the wing to shield them from defensive responsibility, with Stamkos getting the offensive edge at this stage of their careers. In the bottom six, there are a lot of useful defensive foot soldiers on both sides with limited offensive upside. Anthony Cirelli is the most useful as a former Selke threat, but his ability to suppress chances declined this season. Relative to teammates he suppressed 0.25 expected goals against per 60 last year but was just average this year. Calle Jarnkrok started slow, but has been a nice revelation for the Leafs of late. 

The biggest difference though is that the Leafs have William Nylander and the Lightning do not. Toronto already has an edge when it comes to the Big Three thanks to Matthews and Marner’s defensive game — but the fact that it’s actually a Big Four for the Leafs and not the Lightning could be a deciding factor.

That was also true last season, but Nylander has taken his game to new heights this year scoring 39 goals and 86 points. According to data tracked by Corey Sznajder, Nylander ranks fifth in the league in scoring chance contributions at five-on-five with 14.7 behind only Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and Sidney Crosby. He’s a huge difference-maker in how these two teams stack up.

The difference is just as stark on the backend and that’s because the Leafs are deeper and stronger defensively. All six of their defensemen grade out as above average which is something no other playoff team can say though that can change if Luke Schenn (-2/-1) slots in over Timothy Liljegren. With the exception of Morgan Rielly, they’re all above average defensively too and have a collective Defensive Rating of plus-12. The Lightning, in contrast, are at minus-two.

That’s the biggest difference-maker here as the two teams aren’t far off from the offensive value their blue line brings, but are far off when it comes to their work without the puck.

The ideal pairs for Toronto are still up in the air, but the potential of an elite shutdown pair of TJ Brodie and Jake McCabe could shift the balance for Toronto. Brodie has been the bedrock of Toronto’s defensive game and his Defensive Rating ranks ninth in the league. McCabe has been exactly as advertised after a shaky start earning 56 percent of the expected goals and 70 percent of the actual goals as a Leaf.

That frees up Rielly to play a purely offensive role where he thrives most and Mark Giordano to a sheltered role where he can dominate. The Leafs have a nice stable of steady defenders, but Rielly is the only real needle-mover with the puck. There’s been a lot of controversy around Rielly’s game during a down year, but what he can bring to the table offensively should more than make up for what he lacks in defensive ability. That’s especially true on the power play which has been a black mark on past postseason failures. In 144 minutes with Matthews, Marner and Rielly on the power play the team scored 12.9 goals-per-60 and generated 13 expected goals-per-60 this season. Take Rielly out and that drops to 9.5 and 10.4 respectively in 100 minutes or so.

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What Rielly isn’t is the best defenseman in this series. Or second best. That matters. Victor Hedman is far more reputable, especially come playoff time, while Mikhail Sergachev had a fantastic breakout season. He led the Lightning defenders in minutes, points, and play-driving ability proving himself as a legitimate number one. Those two guys can tilt the scales when it matters and give Tampa Bay the star-power edge on the backend. 

That’s especially true if Hedman returns to form after a lackluster regular season. At this time last year, his rating was plus-13/plus-2 — an eight-goal difference that would bring the two defense groups much closer together.

But after those two the Lightning just don’t have the depth to match. Erik Cernak, Ian Cole and Nick Perbix are all passably average; they just don’t match what the Leafs have. Zach Bogosian might also be the team’s Achilles’ heel here. He’s not a bad sixth defenseman, but in this matchup, he’s well below the rest of the competition.

The Leafs have the edge up front and on the backend, but that only matters insofar as the players actually play like it. If the Lightning can flip the switch as many expect them to they can shrink that gap. There’s also one great equalizer that can shift the balance of this series entirely and that’s in net.


The Key Matchup

Andrei Vasilevskiy vs. Ilya Samsonov

On paper, the goalie matchup may seem close. There’s Ilya Samsonov who earned a .919 save percentage across 42 games, and stopped 21.2 goals above expected which put him eighth in the league. It’s a career year for the goaltender Toronto took a risk on this summer; he earned the starter’s net and ran with it.

Across the way, there’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, the best goaltender of the last five years. His .915 save percentage isn’t near his best, but his goals saved above expected of 26.4 is a career-high and good for sixth in the league because he’s been up against his toughest workload of the regular season yet. That ranks ahead of Samsonov until accounting for minutes played, where the Maple Leafs’ netminder gains an edge.

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While Samsonov may have outperformed Vasilevskiy in the regular season, he’s not the goalie every team would want in their starter’s net come playoff time. That’s what makes this such an intriguing battle. Samsonov doesn’t have the playoff pedigree, and there are questions about the depth behind him that depends on Matt Murray’s injury status.

Vasilevskiy, on the other hand, comes to play every postseason regardless of how his regular season goes. This is a netminder who has saved a 17 goals above expected across his series-clinching games between his Stanley Cup win over Dallas in 2020 to his Eastern Conference championship over New York last spring. Between those eight games, he allowed just two actual goals against.

Will the tougher workload, or the three extended seasons start to weigh on Vasilevskiy? Or will he come to play when it matters most once again? That contributed to Toronto’s demise last spring late in the series.

A goaltender like Vasilevskiy can end a season for a team like Toronto. He’s the reliable netminder, but he’s facing sky-high expectations while playing behind a squad trending in the wrong direction.

Samsonov’s the wild card, because his playoff record isn’t exactly inspiring. But neither was his play in the regular season ahead of this year. Does he carry that into the playoffs, or does the pressure of being a number one for this particular team crush him? This could be the deciding matchup in this series.


The Bottom Line

The numbers on both sides favor Toronto. The history on both sides favors Tampa Bay. And with so much at stake for both teams — trying for a third Cup in four seasons might not be on par with attempting to break a curse, but it’s close enough — the most likely outcome here is a series decided by a handful of plays over 6-7 games, with sweeping conclusions drawn no matter who wins. Both teams have had nearly six months to prepare for this matchup. The same goes for the rest of us.

References

How these projections work

How these projections performed last season

Understanding projection uncertainty 

Resources

Evolving Hockey

Natural Stat Trick

Hockey Reference

NHL

All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder

(Top photo of Victor Hedman and William Nylander: Mike Carlson / NHLI via Getty Images)