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Next Great Leafs Writer Finalist #3. David. “CUPS OVER COOKIES” |
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CUPS OVER COOKIES
I had great hopes for the 2024-25 Maple Leafs season. A new coach with Stanley Cup pedigree, a true playoff-calibre defense, and a stonewall goaltending tandem were upgrades reflective of championship teams in recent years. There were times throughout the season when I thought the team looked ready. From the eye test alone they looked different on the ice than they did under Sheldon Keefe. I remember thinking that in the very first game of the season in Montreal—a victory they deserved but were denied of by a red-hot Sam Montembeault. They clogged up the middle of the ice far more effectively than they had at any point prior in the Matthews and Marner era. They peppered 48 shots at Montembeault’s net, only to have all of them turned aside—many in stellar fashion. Despite losing that game 1-0 due to being straight-up goalied, I was a very optimistic Leafs fan after opening night.
The season, as always, had its ebbs and flows, but one topic that was constantly discussed was the killer instinct the team had been lacking in the playoffs in recent years. The bloodthirsty knockout strike to put a game—or a series—all but out of reach even if it wasn’t over yet. There were times when it looked like it might be there, and times when it still looked like it probably wasn’t. But there was a moment late in the season that spoke to me—quite loudly, I may add—that true killer instinct was something this Leafs team still lacked.
Buffalo, NY. Game #81. The penultimate game of the regular season. All night long, Mitch Marner had been trying to set up Auston Matthews for his 400th career goal, which would have gotten himself to 100 points on the season for the first time in his career in the process. Two birds with one stone. With less than five minutes remaining in the third period, Matthews set up Marner with a beautiful behind the back pass for a slam dunk tap-in that Mitch had no choice but to bury himself. 100 points for Mitch, still 399 goals for Auston. That made the game 2-0. A few minutes later, the Sabres pulled the goalie, and with two minutes remaining in the game Marner found himself with a clean look at an empty net and an opportunity to put the game decisively out of reach.
Instead of shooting, he made a pass to Matthews, who did not have nearly as clean a look at the empty net from where he was. The pass missed Matthews and ended up on the stick of a Sabres defender. Fortunately for Marner and the Leafs, the Buffalo player who ended up with the puck collided with a teammate, and the puck bounced back to Matthews, who then slid it past another Sabres defender into the empty net.
Ultimately, the Leafs still won the game, with Nick Robertson adding another late tally to bring the final score to 4-0. As far as that game that night was concerned, everything worked out in the end. But passing up shooting on an open net to put the game decisively out of reach in favor of setting up your buddy for a milestone goal says something. Even if in the moment it doesn’t really seem like it matters, it says something.
It says that not having killer instinct is okay.
It says that trying to collect one last tasty “cookie” before the season ends (a cookie Matthews would have collected two nights later when he scored in the season finale against Detroit) rather than securing the most important thing—the win—is acceptable.
Nobody on the Florida Panthers would have passed up putting that puck into the open net.
The Florida Panthers do not care about cookies. They care about Cups. That’s why they just punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final for the third straight year. They couldn’t care less about cookies, they care about winning. That’s all that matters, and they know it. When Paul Maurice was asked in his post-game presser after Game 7 in Toronto if he thought about challenging the call on Seth Jones’ waived-off goal in the second period because it would have given Jones a chance at a hat-trick later on, his response was flat, cut, and dry.
“We don’t care about hat-tricks,” he said.
That is why the Florida Panthers are so good. They are a team, a unit, a collective entity on the ice 100% of the time. Personal accolades and milestones—cookies—are never at the forefront of their mind. They happen if and when they happen. They are never chased. Perhaps it was an ultimately meaningless mistake in an ultimately meaningless game in terms of the standings and playoff seeding, but when you are part of a team’s leadership group and wear an ‘A’ on your jersey as Mitch Marner did for the majority of his time with the Leafs, it is your responsibility to set the example and put the puck into an empty net when you have a clean look. Every single time. That mentality—or lack thereof—bleeds into the rest of your game, and when you are part of a team’s leadership group, it sends a message loud and clear to the rest of the team.
“If you want to win, that’s good. If you want to pad your stats or help someone else pad theirs, go ahead, that’s fine too. Winning isn’t all that important, anyway.”
You don’t have to be an elite player to have killer instinct. You don’t have to make 11 million dollars per year to shoot the puck into an empty net when it’s right in front of you. Anybody who can skate and hold a hockey can do that. If you’re playing in the NHL, it should be an automatic, no-brainer decision.
When you boil it down, Cups over cookies has nothing at all to do with skill. It has to do with mentality. What do you care about more, wins or numbers? Until the Leafs adopt that mentality, sell out for it, choose to make it part of their DNA, and forget about all options other than winning, they will be heading home by the end of May every year.
The Leafs’ roster will look different come October than it does today. That’s the way it is every year for every team. There will be new faces and new personnel in the locker room. Brad Treliving will do everything he can to give the team their best chance to win. That being said, he can tinker with the roster all he wants, but if the players want to drink from the Stanley Cup anytime soon, the cookie mentality must be done away with. And the only ones who can do away with it are the players on the ice. Craig Berube can preach about it all he wants, but it is ultimately the players are the ones who have to be the cookie mentality exorcists. They must do it themselves. The coaching staff cannot help them. It is the only way.
In the NHL, choosing Cups over cookies is one of the things that separates the men from the boys. It is not a skill, it’s a decision. That’s why the Florida Panthers are playing for the Stanley Cup for the third year in a row, and the Toronto Maple Leafs are at home watching them do so on TV.
Until the Leafs choose Cups over cookies, that is where they will find themselves every year when the calendar turns to June.
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