The Toronto Maple Leafs can learn from the Edmonton Oilers.
While it’s a shame the Oilers lost, it’s clear they had an incredible season and playoffs. The Toronto Maple Leafs, who have a very similar team, can learn a lot from their success.
The Edmonton Oilers’ valiant effort to force a Game 7 after trailing 3-0 is nothing short of miraculous. The Oilers accomplished the feat against the best defensive team in the league. Additionally, the Oilers faced a Florida Panthers club that had already been to the Stanley Cup Finals the year before.
Despite the supreme effort, three particular errors played a major role in preventing the Oilers from completing the ultimate comeback. So let’s explore these mistakes and, more importantly, the valuable lessons the Leafs can draw from them as they approach next season with a long playoff run in mind.
If you’re Kris Knoblauch, you want your best players to be on the court when the game is on the line. There is no point in keeping them on the bench when the team is losing. While that reasoning makes sense, the fact is that the Oilers relied too much on their best players.
In particular, Knoblauch loaded his best players into a unit, deploying Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm on the same shift. During the Cup Final, that approach worked perfectly in Paul Maurice’s strategy, as Maurice could use Sasha Barkov, knowing that either McDavid or Draisaitl would be on the ice together.
In retrospect, separating McDavid and Draisaitl would have made Maurice’s life much more difficult. But therein lies the issue. The Oilers had no reliable wingers to play with Draisaitl. Assuming McDavid played with Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, there were no true top-six wingers to play with Draisaitl.
As for the Maple Leafs, this lesson highlights a mistake coach Sheldon Keefe often made: using Auston Matthews with Mitch Marner and William Nylander on the same unit when the game was on the line. That approach made it easier for opposing coaches to concentrate their defensive efforts on one unit.
Looking ahead, the Leafs should keep in mind that splitting scoring across at least two lines, as the Panthers did, can wreak havoc on an opponent’s game plan.
