Tonight, the Leafs, down 1-0 at the beginning of the Third Period, exploded for three goals in about five minutes to take a 3-1 lead over the Nashville Predators (a relatively mediocre team right now).
They were attacking aggressively, moving the puck up the ice smoothly, pinching at the blue line, sending wingers deep into the corners to fight for the puck, and dominating the game.
In other words, they were using a strategy that worked. It generated offense. It prevented Nashville from mounting sustained pressure (because they constantly had to retreat to defend).
So what do you do when you have a strategy that works? Abandon it, of course. Yes, they did. With about 8:00 minutes left, the Leafs stopped pinching, stop going deep into the corners, and prioritized shift changes over attack. And this change was not subtle. They stopped attacking the Predators in their own zone, seemingly content to dump the puck out and turn it over to them, and get off the ice as quickly as possible.
They essentially said to the Predators: we’re not going to try to score for a while so you can try to catch up without worrying about any aggressive counter-attacks or forechecking on our part. Maybe you can score a goal or two and make it close. We don’t mind. We quit.
It is fucking infuriating to watch. Almost as infuriating as seeing William Nylander receive the puck directly in front of the net and decide to skate in circles for a while instead of shooting. Or watching him give up the puck near the offensive blue line creating a two on one or three on one or even a two on none break for the opponent.
In baseball, a corresponding strategy is to replace a good hitter with a good defender, once you have the lead, on the often vain hope that your opponent won’t tie the game necessitating more hitting, which is no longer available, on your part.
The Leafs now seem to do the same thing when short-handed. They are obviously shy about going on the attack when they force a turnover. It looks like something coming from the top down: Mitch Marner used to be aggressive if he got the puck and bit of space while the Leafs were killing a penalty. Now he just dumps the puck down the ice. Their opponents must enjoy being able to relax when there is a turnover during a powerplay: don’t worry– the Leafs won’t try anything.