<p>It&#8217;s Game One time, baby! Or Game One Eve. The Battle of Ontario, an exciting concept but one that has the excitement tempered by the Leafs only scoring three goals against the Senators all season and the fact that Toronto has one just one game out of seven in the last two seasons against the Sens. That&#8217;s a whole lot of unnecessary downer talk. The regular season is what you learn from and now that Sheldon Keefe isn&#8217;t around to grind the learning experience cliche into a fine pulp, we can acknowledge there has been a lot to learn both from the past Leafs playoff failures and the Leafs&#8217; failures against the Senators.</p>
<h2>The importance of Domi and Robertson</h2>
<p>It&#8217;s not that Nick Robertson or Max Domi had good seasons against the Senators. In Robertson&#8217;s case you can say he did, and in Domi&#8217;s case you can say that he improved. That&#8217;s something. The reason for looking at Domi and Robertson as value add players in the first round is that the Senators&#8217; third pairing is something Toronto can look to exploit.</p>
<p>Nick Jensen is a decent enough defenceman but he will either be relying on a rotating partner from the top four or working with Travis Green&#8217;s attempt to find a depth option that matches well against the Leafs, similar to what the Leafs will be attempting to do with their sixth defencemen.</p>
<p>The case for Domi and Robertson is that secondary scoring is the name of the game at 5v5 in the playoffs and when Matthews and Tavares are going to be line matched into oblivion, Max Domi and Nick Robertson are capable offensive players that need to be ready to pick up the slack. The same holds true of Laughton, Jarnkrok, McMann, and Pacioretty, depending on who doesn&#8217;t get the choice gig next to Tavares and Nylander (as much as it hasn&#8217;t been tested, I&#8217;d argue this could be a good spot for Laughton, but that&#8217;s for another time.)</p>
<p>Robertson is one of the few Leafs that picked up a point against the Senators this season (and again for what it is worth McMann is one of the few with a goal), and both Robertson and Domi have been hitting their stride heading into the playoffs.</p>
<p>The issue, as always, with Domi and Robertson is defensive zone play, and the Senators third line is offensively capable enough to take advantage of that duo, so the name of the game would be sheltering, but a sheltered (also read as rested and ready to go) offensive option could be a difference maker over giving preference to having two bottom six shot suppression/checking lines.</p>
<h2>The Leafs still lack a simple heavy shot from the point</h2>
<p><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-121295" src="https://i0.wp.com/publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/ShotSpeedLeafs2425.png?resize=907%2C415&#038;ssl=1" alt="" width="907" height="415" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/ShotSpeedLeafs2425.png?w=907&amp;ssl=1 907w, https://i0.wp.com/publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/ShotSpeedLeafs2425.png?resize=300%2C137&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/ShotSpeedLeafs2425.png?resize=768%2C351&amp;ssl=1 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 907px) 100vw, 907px" /></p>
<p>The Leafs have but one player who has shown that he can hammer the puck from the point with any consistency. We&#8217;ll get to him in a minute, but for now let&#8217;s get to one of my simple narratives that I fall back on all the time. The Leafs need a really heavy point shot. I like Morgan Rielly but that has never been his game, he&#8217;s a pincher and a puck mover. Oliver Ekman-Larsson is a whole lot of the same, and even the defensive defencemen like Carlo, Tanev, and McCabe don&#8217;t have the hammering shot from the point that the Leafs have enjoyed borrowing in the past when they&#8217;ve brought in players like Lyubushkin and Schenn, not that they use their shot often and it was exclusively limited to 5v5.</p>
<p>The forward group isn&#8217;t much help in this area either. Robertson, Tavares, Nylander, and Matthews all have good shots, but are more about speed of release than actual velocity of the puck. They can hit the 90s, but there isn&#8217;t a 100mph guy there and opposite of the defensive situation, you&#8217;d really only get to use them in that capacity on the powerplay anyway. There wouldn&#8217;t be a 5v5 solution.</p>
<p>The reason why I care so much about this is that the playoffs are a time of greasier and/or simpler goals. The opportunity for Mitch Marner to outwit the defence with an ankle breaking move or precise cross-ice pass aren&#8217;t as likely as John Tavares laying down a deflection or Matthew Knies fighting for a rebound. The goals will be greasy and a heavy point shot helps with that. I&#8217;ve longed for this since the days of Kaberle and Gardiner and now I&#8217;m here complaining about it again.</p>
<p>Where I see at least some minimal salvation is at the bottom of the Leafs&#8217; depth chart. Philippe Myers is that shot. His 100 mph shot put him the 97th percentile for shot speed and his average speed also sits in the 96th percentile. He&#8217;s also in the 90th percentile for shots over 90 mph. Myers adds value to the Leafs playoff lineup.</p>
<p>While the Leafs and Berube have made it pretty clear that Simon Benoit is their guy, it will be interesting to see if things change by Game Two. Will the Leafs need a point shot? How much is Craig Berube relying on his top five defencemen taking the minutes and is a specialist a better option for the sixth spot? The answers aren&#8217;t there yet, but as someone who is fan of shin destroying point shots that wreak havoc on the opposition, I would give consideration to playing Myers over Benoit.</p>
<h2>What the three games against Ottawa say regarding the Leafs roster</h2>
<p>This first game against the Senators this season came with the built-in excuse of the Leafs playing without Auston Matthews. That&#8217;s not really an excuse and being shutout 3-0 isn&#8217;t acceptable in any situation, but it certainly adds a little context to a game that looks pretty bad when just staring at the result.</p>
<p>The shot attempts and quality of chances in the second game against the Senators this season support the notion that the Leafs outplayed the Senators and they were more or less the victims of a Anton Forsberg standing on his head. No team deserves the luxury of just saying &#8220;we were goalie&#8217;d&#8221; and moving on from it, but it was another understandable situation in a trio of games that resulted in a season series sweep.</p>
<p>The final game includes an empty netter from the Senators that doesn&#8217;t fully capture how balanced this game was. The Leafs should still have picked up a win in one of these three games, but this was an even keeled battle.</p>
<p>Terrible results but nothing that should result in treating the Senators like an unfortunate playoff seeding.</p>
<p>What can also be learned from those previous games is that Steven Lorentz and Pontus Holmberg were a lot more effective in fourth line roles than almost any other bottom six options the Leafs used. There were also struggles from Oliver Ekman-Larsson when playing higher up in the Leafs pairings, and Philippe Myers was more successful than Simon Benoit against the Senators (furthering the case for Myers in the lineup.)</p>
<p>The one interesting thing was unexpected was that despite being one of the few Leafs with a goal against the Senators this year, Bobby McMann didn&#8217;t have a great showing against the Senators this year statistically. Playing with Domi and Nylander he struggled, and again when he played with Tavares and Marner. With the return of Max Pacioretty it seems likely that McMann will find himself starting from the bottom of the lineup and having to work his way back up.</p>
<p>Of course, three games are just three games and three points in time. November, January, and March all yielding unfortunate results isn&#8217;t a sign that the Senators would easily take three games off the Leafs in a row in round one the same way the Leafs wouldn&#8217;t have an easy task facing the Lightning despite sweeping them this year.</p>
<p><em>Data from <a href="http://nhl.com/edge">NHL Edge</a> and <a href="http://naturalstattrick.com">Natural Stat Trick</a></em></p>


It's Game One time, baby! Or Game One Eve. The Battle of Ontario, an exciting concept but one that has the excitement tempered by the Leafs only scoring three goals against the Senators all season and the fact that Toronto has one just one game out of seven in the last two seasons against the Sens. That's a whole lot of unnecessary downer talk. The regular season is what you learn from and now that Sheldon Keefe isn't around to grind the learning experience cliche into a fine pulp, we can acknowledge there has been a lot to learn both from the past Leafs playoff failures and the Leafs' failures against the Senators.
<h2>The importance of Domi and Robertson</h2>
It's not that Nick Robertson or Max Domi had good seasons against the Senators. In Robertson's case you can say he did, and in Domi's case you can say that he improved. That's something. The reason for looking at Domi and Robertson as value add players in the first round is that the Senators' third pairing is something Toronto can look to exploit.

Nick Jensen is a decent enough defenceman but he will either be relying on a rotating partner from the top four or working with Travis Green's attempt to find a depth option that matches well against the Leafs, similar to what the Leafs will be attempting to do with their sixth defencemen.

The case for Domi and Robertson is that secondary scoring is the name of the game at 5v5 in the playoffs and when Matthews and Tavares are going to be line matched into oblivion, Max Domi and Nick Robertson are capable offensive players that need to be ready to pick up the slack. The same holds true of Laughton, Jarnkrok, McMann, and Pacioretty, depending on who doesn't get the choice gig next to Tavares and Nylander (as much as it hasn't been tested, I'd argue this could be a good spot for Laughton, but that's for another time.)

Robertson is one of the few Leafs that picked up a point against the Senators this season (and again for what it is worth McMann is one of the few with a goal), and both Robertson and Domi have been hitting their stride heading into the playoffs.

The issue, as always, with Domi and Robertson is defensive zone play, and the Senators third line is offensively capable enough to take advantage of that duo, so the name of the game would be sheltering, but a sheltered (also read as rested and ready to go) offensive option could be a difference maker over giving preference to having two bottom six shot suppression/checking lines.
<h2>The Leafs still lack a simple heavy shot from the point</h2>
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-121295" src="https://publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/04/ShotSpeedLeafs2425.png" alt="" width="907" height="415" />

The Leafs have but one player who has shown that he can hammer the puck from the point with any consistency. We'll get to him in a minute, but for now let's get to one of my simple narratives that I fall back on all the time. The Leafs need a really heavy point shot. I like Morgan Rielly but that has never been his game, he's a pincher and a puck mover. Oliver Ekman-Larsson is a whole lot of the same, and even the defensive defencemen like Carlo, Tanev, and McCabe don't have the hammering shot from the point that the Leafs have enjoyed borrowing in the past when they've brought in players like Lyubushkin and Schenn, not that they use their shot often and it was exclusively limited to 5v5.

The forward group isn't much help in this area either. Robertson, Tavares, Nylander, and Matthews all have good shots, but are more about speed of release than actual velocity of the puck. They can hit the 90s, but there isn't a 100mph guy there and opposite of the defensive situation, you'd really only get to use them in that capacity on the powerplay anyway. There wouldn't be a 5v5 solution.

The reason why I care so much about this is that the playoffs are a time of greasier and/or simpler goals. The opportunity for Mitch Marner to outwit the defence with an ankle breaking move or precise cross-ice pass aren't as likely as John Tavares laying down a deflection or Matthew Knies fighting for a rebound. The goals will be greasy and a heavy point shot helps with that. I've longed for this since the days of Kaberle and Gardiner and now I'm here complaining about it again.

Where I see at least some minimal salvation is at the bottom of the Leafs' depth chart. Philippe Myers is that shot. His 100 mph shot put him the 97th percentile for shot speed and his average speed also sits in the 96th percentile. He's also in the 90th percentile for shots over 90 mph. Myers adds value to the Leafs playoff lineup.

While the Leafs and Berube have made it pretty clear that Simon Benoit is their guy, it will be interesting to see if things change by Game Two. Will the Leafs need a point shot? How much is Craig Berube relying on his top five defencemen taking the minutes and is a specialist a better option for the sixth spot? The answers aren't there yet, but as someone who is fan of shin destroying point shots that wreak havoc on the opposition, I would give consideration to playing Myers over Benoit.
<h2>What the three games against Ottawa say regarding the Leafs roster</h2>
This first game against the Senators this season came with the built-in excuse of the Leafs playing without Auston Matthews. That's not really an excuse and being shutout 3-0 isn't acceptable in any situation, but it certainly adds a little context to a game that looks pretty bad when just staring at the result.

The shot attempts and quality of chances in the second game against the Senators this season support the notion that the Leafs outplayed the Senators and they were more or less the victims of a Anton Forsberg standing on his head. No team deserves the luxury of just saying "we were goalie'd" and moving on from it, but it was another understandable situation in a trio of games that resulted in a season series sweep.

The final game includes an empty netter from the Senators that doesn't fully capture how balanced this game was. The Leafs should still have picked up a win in one of these three games, but this was an even keeled battle.

Terrible results but nothing that should result in treating the Senators like an unfortunate playoff seeding.

What can also be learned from those previous games is that Steven Lorentz and Pontus Holmberg were a lot more effective in fourth line roles than almost any other bottom six options the Leafs used. There were also struggles from Oliver Ekman-Larsson when playing higher up in the Leafs pairings, and Philippe Myers was more successful than Simon Benoit against the Senators (furthering the case for Myers in the lineup.)

The one interesting thing was unexpected was that despite being one of the few Leafs with a goal against the Senators this year, Bobby McMann didn't have a great showing against the Senators this year statistically. Playing with Domi and Nylander he struggled, and again when he played with Tavares and Marner. With the return of Max Pacioretty it seems likely that McMann will find himself starting from the bottom of the lineup and having to work his way back up.

Of course, three games are just three games and three points in time. November, January, and March all yielding unfortunate results isn't a sign that the Senators would easily take three games off the Leafs in a row in round one the same way the Leafs wouldn't have an easy task facing the Lightning despite sweeping them this year.

<em>Data from <a href="http://nhl.com/edge">NHL Edge</a> and <a href="http://naturalstattrick.com">Natural Stat Trick</a></em>

Looking at the season against the Senators, bottom six X-factors, and value of a heavy shot: Leaflets

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