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Who Is Better: Lightning or Maple Leafs? |
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The Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs have the two best odds to win the 2019 Stanley Cup, at 8/1 and 9/1 respectively, per Vegas Insider. It certainly has been an eventful offseason for both franchises. Recently, I received a question from reader David Mackin asking, “How do the Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs stack up?” When comparing these teams, the debate is animated by examining where their elite talent lies and how their coach fashions their identity.
At forward, the Toronto Maple Leafs added John Tavares, giving them arguably one of the best NHL center duos in Auston Matthews and Tavares. The Penguins and Capitals have won the last three Cups with depth down the middle, and now Toronto can boast superstar centers who can puncture defenses with their creativity and skill, and paper over the weaknesses of their linemates.
Tavares posted 37 goals and 84 points on a miserable Islanders team last season. How will he perform when he has William Nylander or Mitch Marner on his wing? It’s a matchup nightmare for opponents, and it also will allow the Maple Leafs the flexibility to move Nazem Kadri to No. 3 center. If opponents want to deploy a shutdown line to neutralize the Maple Leafs scorers, they will have to pick their poison.
Toronto also has a nice complement to their star players who will need the puck to be effective; Zach Hyman and Connor Brown can retrieve relentlessly and win the corner battles for Toronto. Both Hyman and Brown can be effective in non-scoring areas. The Maple Leafs were a below-average possession team last year, finishing -22 in Corsi plus-minus. For that to change, these players will need to keep the puck in Toronto’s possession.
Toronto Coach Mike Babcock wants to win with speed, and he wants his players to move the puck quickly, which translates into nullifying icing with won races and utilizing stretch passes. It also means an unceasing transition offense. The skill players were fed the puck on neutral-zone curls and encouraged to attack fearlessly on entries. That downside was it could lead to deleterious counterattacks when turnovers were forced. Individuality was fostered, and it worked a lot. The Maple Leafs finished the regular season with more Scoring Chances For than any team in the NHL. (The Lightning were 5th but had nearly 200 less.)
Coach Jon Cooper wants order from the Lightning. The Lightning’s defensemen became progressively more active as their offense was stifled against the Capitals, but ideally this team wins through territorial advantage and speed. The recklessness from the Lightning defensemen was a feature of the regular season, but that adventurism was much more buttoned up during the postseason. Cooper’s ideal is to shoot from all angles and retrieve – i.e., dominate the forecheck and cycle – and the Lightning have the forward skill and team defense to beat almost anyone.
When the Lightning extended Nikita Kucherov, it ensured that profound forward skill would be with the organization for the next eight years. Kucherov’s puck-handling uproots and discards opponents and his wrist shot is empyreal. Although Kucherov was disappointing in the conference finals, he is a consistent threat for 40 goals for the next several seasons. He is a big reason why the Lightning finished first in the NHL during the regular season in even-strength Goals Plus-Minus.
At center, Tampa Bay boasts a duo that is a notch below the Maple Leafs’, but has room to grow. Steven Stamkos creates offense with his passing and shooting. Brayden Point’s work effort is unassailable, and his speed and ability to generate offense in high-traffic areas made him formidable during the Capitals series when the rest of the Lightning’s offense withered. At 22, it is Point who stands to grow the most of any of the Lightning’s top forwards.
Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson are leaving their scoring primes. J.T. Miller is 25 and has likely plateaued as a streaky 20-plus-goals power forward. And this is where the Maple Leafs have an edge on the Lightning. Matthews, Nylander and Marner are really young, and have more potential that can be squeezed than the Lightning have in their roster. Maybe Kucherov can get better and become a 50-goal scorer. Perhaps Point scores 30-plus goals and registers 80 points. But even in that rosiest outlook, the Lightning would need Anthony Cirelli and Adam Erne, or some of their past draft picks, to develop for them to match the depth at forward that the Leafs possess. The Lightning find star players in unlikely places, so it would be foolish to doubt them—but as of this writing their two best young players are outnumbered by numerous Toronto forwards who have considerable room to grow.
At defense, there is no debate. Victor Hedman won the Norris Trophy last season. The Lightning allowed fewer shot attempts at 5v5 than the redoubtable Nashville Predators, finishing 7th in the NHL. Mikhail Sergachev is astonishingly gifted, and if he can eschew the trappings of the sophomore sting, he can dramatically improve the Lightning’s defensive group. He may be the Tampa Bay player I am most excited to watch this season. There are just not that many defensemen in the NHL who can use their speed after being idle to motor past opponents with consistency. Sergachev uses his reach and stride to glide past enemy forwards at the blue line routinely.
Anton Stralman and Ryan McDonagh give the Lightning a shutdown pair. During last year’s postseason, the duo fused craftsmanship and belligerence, resulting in the two acting greater than the sum of their parts. They were outstanding in the Bruins series and dogged in the Capitals matchup. The Lightning had a dreadful penalty kill in the last regular season, but at 5v5 they finished just outside the top ten in Goals Against. They were 8th in Scoring Chances Against (and only three teams in front of them made the postseason).
Compare that to the Maple Leafs and it gets a bit embarrassing for Toronto. Only the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Ottawa Senators, and Arizona Coyotes allowed more shot attempts at 5v5. Woof! The Maple Leafs finished just outside the top ten in Goals Against and penalty kills during the regular season, but that was because Frederik Andersen had a .918 save percentage. His play plummeted against the Bruins, but the Toronto defense also could not stop the Patrice Bergeron line, or any of the Bruins’ forwards. Morgan Rielly, Jake Gardiner, and the rest of the defensive group can push the pace, but they proved unable to win the 2-1 games, or keep the play more tight-checking with less trading chances.
Of course, a bad team defense stretches the tentacles of culpability to the forwards as well. When Matthews and his pals deign to battle in the corners and help the defensemen, it comes in fits and starts. One way to alleviate defensive liabilities is more responsibility from the Toronto forwards. Tampa Bay’s mishaps are patched up by Andrei Vasilevskiy, who gobbles up pucks like the Venus Fly Trap swallows insects. Clearly, the Lightning’s margin for error is greater. Despite Toronto’s increased offensive firepower, better decision-making and pragmatism by the forwards on breakouts and in transition defense will be necessary.
The Maple Leafs’ offense was their biggest strength heading into the summer, and they decided to bolster that area regardless. It makes sense: talent, especially forward talent, wins Cups. The Lightning aren’t staid compared to the Maple Leafs’ dynamism. Rather, the Lightning are versatile where the Maple Leafs are one-dimensional. The Lightning have depth that runs through their forwards all the way to the man in the crease. They can win a game 5-4 or pull out a low-scoring nail-biter. Malleability is what makes the Lightning better suited for a Cup run this season.
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • 
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