OverDrive - Siegel on the Maple Leafs' series-clinching character, the aim against the Senators and lineup formation in the game

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

The Athletic Maple Leafs Reporter Jonas Siegel joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines from the Maple Leafs and Senators' matchup, Toronto looking to close the series, Max Pacioretty's role with John Tavares and William Nylander, Craig Berube aiming to bring the winning mentality, Anthony Stolarz keeping the consistency, how the team can win the series and more.

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on the second line right away. But to me, it always felt like if you're gonna play him, just play him where he's played best during the season. Like he spent a lot of time with Taveras and Neal under early on. And I think they had like some moments. And if you look at some of the numbers early on, they're pretty good.

And like, you could see that his IQ, his skill, his size, it all kind of fit Well with those guys and it was pretty clear pretty quickly that the other options weren't working like max Oh, we didn't work Pontius Holmberg. I thought they stuck with too long So I've been saying like to myself that I think he's going to have That's already is gonna happen some sort of momentary playoff and maybe tonight is the night Yeah, well, that's that's the plan. Go ahead noodles. Yeah. No, it makes sense Jonas and here my my argument with it is on the road Sometimes you need to match up a little bit heavier body

I thought the Homburg is a guy who's trying to draw penalties and he's a little bit of an agitator But he's not a big guy like physically and you Pacioretty was at the height of his game, now it's not there yet, but if he still has that physical mentality on the road, winning loose puck battles, you know, the two players that he plays with, you get them the puck and you go to the net. That's kind of the mindset that has to be and that's what gave him success. Do you think that's where Chief was trying to go with this patch already moving up with them? Yeah, and he mentioned the size and I remember just thinking back to like those early days

in the season where down low especially, like you could feel his physicality being a difference maker for them. And like you said, like he's at the net. Like I remember there was one goal, I don't know why I remember it, but I think he scored against Anaheim maybe in Toronto. And he was at the net and Taveras found him. And it was just the kind of goal that I could see them scoring tonight. And like they need another line to get going. Like this whole series, to me it felt like

it's just kind of been nice Matthew's martyr. And they've kind of been good in pockets and not good in sustained periods in and they can get that the owner to their after any combo to give them something going to be important because you look at the other two lines and i just don't know if they're gonna get any off and the most to do yeah well that's the truth of that i've liked a lot in line but they're not

they're not scoring you know they're not really in danger of scoring like a lot in the on croc and lorenz they played well and they push play and they've they've been someone that's been reliable he's starting games with them and you know i'm i'm curious what you think would be the best option for berube tonight you get to put the game sheet in first are you start the matthews line would you would you think the plan is i'm glad you mention that because i was I didn't love like starting game five

I think he started that last game with them. Yes He did and then he went back to them to start the third period I'm thinking like man like this is like kind of go time like it's it's it's cool Like that line is you're right like they've been effective in what they do But like let's go like if you're if you're the least like you need that Matthews line to come out flying I would start them tonight I would start them in a second and start them in a third like they need that group to be difference makers and obviously like we talked a lot about Matthews and Marner and like they need

those guys to be difference makers in games like this this is why they're built the way that they're built I just roll with those guys as much as possible and I would honestly like I think they should be playing those guys even more than they have. That's where I was going to go Jonas. Would you shorten the bench or find an extra shift or find some extra minutes? Yes. Yeah. Okay. And even like some situations like you think of that third line the way it's composed right now is Holmberg, McMahon and Domi. So maybe for like the odd offensive zone draw maybe throw Neal and they're out there Maybe there's these just look for opportunities to get those guys extra ice because like you look through some of these games It's like they're rolling four lines and like Matthews and Marner and Neal and they're especially like he's been playing not heavy minutes in this series and it's like now is the time.

They've played those guys, remember some of the regular season games we talked about, it's like Mars at 25 minutes and Matthews is at 26 minutes. I remember there was a game against San Jose where some of those guys played upwards in 25 minutes and it's like now they're in the playoffs and they're playing them 21, 20, 19. Like it doesn't make sense to me, especially if they get down, they should be pushing those guys to end the series because like you just don't want this if you're the Leafs to get back to 7.

No, you most certainly don't. Obviously, right? Yeah, most certainly you do not want that. You know, it's going to be interesting to see how Barube handles it tonight because you've got to believe your best. Everyone's going to be ready to play and you go into every game, I'm sure, anticipating that and hoping for that. But it's not always the case.

And you know, he took offense to the core four, core four question. It's a team. Well, if it's a team and your best players aren't playing well, then maybe they shouldn't play that much. Like the other night after Willie dogged that back check, he had him out there late. Maybe that was an opportunity to say if it's a team and not a core four then if you're not going to pull your weight, why are you guaranteed ice time? That ship may have sailed because now we're into game six and you need your best players,

but there's some inconsistency there. You can't scoff at core four and then just play them together every single game all the time and never move often. See, but I don't think like the playoffs is the time to send messages. I understand. Right? Like, and they can't generate goals. Like, you're right. It's not really been like a meritocracy throughout the year. Like certain players have not played well and played certain players have. Like Nick Robertson is seventh on the team and goals. He's not playing.

And I get the rationale for not playing him. They need some of these other guys. Like we talk about the star players, they need the odd contribution, whether it's from like Bobby McMahon, score 20 goals during the year. Like we talked about, like they have six guys who can score. He was one of them and he's had a difficult fall season. So like it's a lot about the Stars obviously, but if they can get some contributions

like they got earlier in the series, you know, Max Domi overtime winner, Simone Benoit, overtime winner, obviously that will go a long way too. And the goalie, I don't know much about goalies apparently, but I know it's gotta be better. Obviously that will go a long way to in the goalie. I don't know much about goalies apparently, but well I still owe you an apology, but I still Vasilevsky wasn't great. He was not great and I agree but I I had this saying the other day and I was trying not to

Screw it up. I don't know if you heard me say it Jonas where I was like Jonas wouldn't know goaltending me say it, Jonas, where I was like, Jonas wouldn't know goaltending. When it came to his ass, it didn't have his head in his back pocket. And I nailed it. I was laughing about it. But then I was like, I owe Jonas an apology because that was too extreme. That's where I was going to go. Anthony Stollers, have you noticed anything different? Because honestly, I haven't. There's screenshots, there's seeing eye shots, but I didn't think two games ago he had his A game, a couple pucks slid through him, that pinto breakaway where maybe he gets a bounce and it goes out the other side. But keep in mind, this is his first game six, high pressure, on the road type of thing.

How has he handled it? Just the demeanor and watching him in person so i would say in the dressing room this morning it felt a little tense around him but like what does that mean does that mean anything i'm more curious to see what you and i talked a lot about is how is he going to continue to handle this workload because yeah this is six starts now in 11. The most starts that he started during a one month during the regular season was seven and this is six in 11 days. So and you've kind of

felt like as the series has gone on he hasn't been bad but he's not been as sharp as he was in game one and it it was like, you look at his regular season again, it's like every start he had for the most part was like two, three days rest. Like it was a lot of three days rest. And now this is basically every other night. So this is a big game for him because like, if it doesn't go well for him,

you know what you're gonna be talking about tomorrow. Like if he gives up four and they lose four ones, you might be talking about like, should they go to Joseph Wall and game seven? Now I think that would probably be nuts, but it's not another question that we're talking about tomorrow if it doesn't go well for Stolars. Yeah. And that's the, that's a part of the conversation I would say the last couple of days that really

has not been brought up because they didn't lose the other night because of Stolars. I mean the first goal was a C&I shot. You'd like them to have that. It's a shot from the point. You'd like them to have it, but he didn't. And then the 2-on-1 by Cousins, it's a great pass and Cousins gets it off and gets it up. It's a very difficult one to stop. Then two empty netters.

And they didn't score. So it wasn't Stolars. The game before was not his best game, but it has been more about the team, the lack of intensity, I think the effort in game five, the fact that the best players again couldn't get on the game sheet. But that Stolar's story and the goaltending story is kind of hovering in the background where he can quiet that down quickly. Right Noodle?

He plays a great game tonight. He's a hero that maybe you could argue, the mvp the series who knows we'll see if if it when they win this thing but as jonas points out it's a hundred percent valid if if it gets leaky then you're like oh what's happening here with a completely different component of the team we haven't been focusing on right you know the last couple of days uh... so i i hope he has himself a night because you're right jonah so i think

it would be completely unfair to joseph wall to just throw him in for game seven there there i i i would argue right now i don't know if there's a scenario where wall starts unless there's an injury but that would be because even if you have stole our says no good and gets pulled tonight you go back to them. You know what I mean?

He's been so good and Wolos have been playing. I just don't know if they're... if they lose tonight, I don't see a scenario that Wolos starting unless there's an injury. But maybe I'm wrong on this. There's been such crazy storylines in the playoffs. And where were we a year ago where it's like game seven and Jerry Samsonov comes out. But you're right though, Samsonov wasn't right, Jonas. It was more like we've got to go to wall because we can't keep playing Samsonov. Could do it.

Well, and then remember what happened before game seven. A wall can't play. I just like, I kind of, I kind of wonder, like you go back to game five and I'm sure you guys felt this, like it felt this way in the building. It just felt like every chance they were getting early on, Allmark was off. And then when they didn't score with those opportunities, especially on that, that first power play, it's like, oh man, this could be one of those games where All-Mark just out-dose Stolarz. And so I wonder if it ends up being another game like that

where Stolarz kind of just has to match All-Mark, because you look at the numbers and you can see it on the ice. All-Mark's in the better goalie, wouldn't you say? Like, score the series if you're picking who's been the better guy. Early on, it was Stolarz and gradually Omar has just kind of taken it. I watched Travis Green's media, I'm not sure if you were there this morning on it, but

somebody asked him, how do you feel about the elephant in the room now? It was tongue in cheek. He said, listen, I've watched this guy all year I know what he's capable of and I've seen him go through these stretches where you know He he has like some bumps in the road and then he gets into a groove and he rattles off some wins and that's Kind of what I think Ottawa is hoping is if this guy can have another really strong performance He gives them an opportunity to be in this game and And he needs to. Honestly, he had a great game last game, he's got to be better tonight. As the series gets deeper and for more and more stakes, the goaltender is going to be under the magnifying glass no matter what.

That's why it's interesting with Stolarz, we talk about Ottawa being very green. Stolarz in the net is very green because he's going through this process for the first time at 31 years old. Cool. Can I add one thing? Yeah. I was just going to add as you were talking, to me, with everything you're saying with Al Mark, to me like maybe the sneaky key for the Leafs tonight might be their power play

because you remember early in the series that was basically the difference in the first three games is their power play was just like Automatic and you think back to last game and that first power play they got they were all over it Like I think they had five shots on six attempts in like a minute and then nice took a penalty It was over and then you go to that third power play I think it was that they had and they just looked really tight and you could tell that no one wanted to beat the clock it wasn't moving frisky it wasn't moving quickly and so suddenly they had an opportunity to get themselves back in the game and

it was just on and so I wonder if the power plays that change for whether Rick Marter was Matthews that can kind of get them in this game and put them over the top. Well, we're getting close, about 20 minutes from puck drop. Enjoy it there, Jonas. Thank you for doing this. Thanks, boys. There he is, Jonas Siegel of the Athletic. Introducing Brian Adams Radio on I Heart Radio.

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