The Hockey PDOcast - What We Saw From Panthers Beating the Leafs in Game 7, and Big Picture Takeaways From the Series

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by John Matisz to break down what they saw from Game 7 of Panthers vs. Leafs, how Florida was able to emphatically win the series, and the big picture takeaways from it all. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitra Filippovich and joining me is my good buddy John Mattis. John, what's going on, man? Have you had a chance to get a bit of sleep and get your bearings after last night's game seven? A little bit. Enough sleep, I would call it. I wouldn't say a lot. But it's great. I mean, this is Canadian holiday, May 2, 4, but though it's May 19th. And we got the, the, the, the, conference final set and we're coming off of game seven it's it's good times yeah it's exciting um yeah so the listeners know they get a little peek behind the current here there's no one here at the vancouver sports net branch i'm pretty much here on an island by myself and i'd have it no other way we're not

taking the holiday off we got content delivered to the fans especially after a game seven we got to break it all down we're going to go through today what we saw in game seven of panthers leaves uh get into how florida was able to eventually just completely extinguish them and leave no doubt by the end of that game. And then maybe some big picture takeaways at the end for both sides. Moving forward, I'll start off with this. I was very interested to see how this game played out based on how wildly different the two previous games in this series were, right?

Game 5 was a 6-1 Panthers win, especially from the second period on. It was very one-sided and they blew it open. Then in game 6, I did, on Saturday I did a show with Hart. and breaking it all down. And our lasting takeaway from that was this defensive effort, the Leafs put forward, how they were keeping the Panthers to the outside, how despite all the shot volume, none of it was really all that threatening.

Joseph Wall was able to get the shutout. And so I wanted to see what version we'd get in this game. And it's interesting because at the start, you know, the Panthers start off this game, I believe shot attempts were 21 to nothing before the Leafs got their first shot attempt themselves. And yet while I was watching that, I know the Panthers had a lot of ozone time and pressure

and all of that. But it was very reminiscent of what we saw for large stretches of game six where a lot of it was being kind of held to the perimeter. A lot of hope plays from the Panthers are just kind of flinging the puck on net, hoping for a bounce or a rebound to materialize

and at least we're doing a really good job with their blocking and with their stick work of kind of neutralizing some of these opportunities. And, you know, certainly not the type of way you want to play, but ultimately kind of weathering the storm a little bit to allow themselves to get into it.

And from that point forward, the rest of the first, the Leaves were actually able to mount some good looks. The shot on goal totals don't necessarily reflect it, but I thought that probably in the first period, the Leaves might have had all of the best scoring opportunities. Certainly off the rush, they generated a couple. They missed the net on a few of them, but they really threw some stuff of a Brovsky, and then they kill off that penalty, and you're thinking, all right, going into the second period, both teams are in this. This is going to be a really fun one. And then the second period, I think, just unfolded in a way that was very reminiscent of game five, but also just so once.

decided that it was almost kind of jarring to watch a play out in real time. Yeah, it was quite something else. Like to go back to that first period, I found the back half of it to be super entertaining, you know, net front battles, scoring chances, big saves, great pace. And part of that was, you know, and this is obviously in hindsight and when you're watching it doesn't quite seem as meaningful. But when you go back and watch that back half of the first, I mean, it's kind of a sliding doors moment for the Leafs. And, you know, I guess moments might be the right way to put it because you've got Neelander getting the first shot on goal off this

sort of like puck protection half rush chance where he's kind of in alone a little bit. Fumbles the puck doesn't get a great opportunity. Not long after that he has a partial break misses the net by a mile but again he's kind of creating he's doing what Nealander's done all postseason

and then you've got Scott Lawton breakaway that's the third shot on goal. He can't lift it over Barowski's pad after deeking him out and then you have Lawrence another breakaway fourth shot on goal for the Leafs. And it's kind of like a basic wrister aiming for the armpit area. He almost beat

him, but it was very kind of predictable from a fourth liner. I feel like those four chances really the fact that they didn't convert on one of them, or at least like, you know, get a stoppage in play where the next time out, you know, you've got

a ton of ozone pressure and you sort of build off that. It seemed like once Bob shut the door on those four plays and then, you know, he made a poke check at one point too. It seemed like that was, you know, the beginning of the end for the Leafs in a lot of ways. There's nothing better than the buzz and kind of just like, I don't know, the angst for a lack of better word, maybe the anticipation of the puck drop of a game seven, right?

Just kind of how tense it is, how much you know is on the line. Like I'm just sitting at home yesterday kind of pacing the apartment went for a little walk to kill some time, just feeling butterflies in the stomach. and I don't even care who wins and I'm just hoping for a good game. I can't even imagine the headspace for players, especially as you get later into their postseason in these types of games, right?

Just trying to execute with precision in the least ideal circumstances to actually do so. Like I was thinking about it. It runs kind of counter to everything we talk about all year, especially throughout the regular season of all these advancements in terms of offensive playing style and trying to set up passes that lead to direct shots from East-West,

movements and stuff and all these intricate offensive zone motions. And the game's certainly trending in that way. And then you come into this game set seven setting. And it feels like you're generally better off just simplifying the approach and being as direct as possible. And you could see that right out of the gate in this game, right? I believe off the opening draw, the puck gets dumped into the leave zone. They kind of rim it around the boards.

Marner's there on the half wall. He boots it into the slot. It comes right to Barkov net front. He's by himself. the leaves did a good job of kind of getting a stick on it or pressuring or rushing him on that shot but he goes with his backhand, disguised it and doesn't get it on net.

Later on, a couple minutes later, you had Carlo just kind of harmlessly go wall and out and it winds up in the neutral zone. Eckblad kind of fumbles the puck all of a sudden out of nowhere. You have a two-on-one materializing for Tavares

and Holmberg and Foresling's able to clean that up. And then I think the play most indicative of this was later on in that first, you know, Riley tries to stretch the puck out with a breakout pass Stephen his own. Echblad cuts it off immediately gets it to Barkov

in the slot. He looks up and he's by himself. There's no one between him and a wall. He's kind of standing on the inside of the right circle and go back and watch it. He never even looks at the net. Like I think in a regular circumstance, this is the right play where he's, I mean, he can beat a goalie. He's so talented.

He can beat a goalie cleanly with a wrist shot. But he's trying to set up that cross-ice, Ryanhart one-timer from close distance. And Ryan Hart just sort of, you know, squibs it essentially, doesn't get a good shot off. It goes into the corner and nothing materializes out of it. And I was thinking watching that, I was like, these are the types of opportunities where obviously you got to make the most of it. And I wonder how much of that plays into it. But then the game certainly settled down a little bit from that point.

I thought Bob was incredible in the first. I know I have kind of in the past been dubious, you and I, especially two years ago as we look forward to another Hurricanes panthers series. were kind of pushing back on the narrative that his safe percentage in those instances were reflective of how dominant he actually was because of what the Panthers were doing defensively. Because of the way this series was being played with the Panthers volume versus the Leafs kind of opportunistically getting out for these odd man rushes, it was putting him in the line of fire. And I thought, you know, in watching this, how much time passed in real time between the opening puck drop and the first time he actually had to do literally anything in this game, probably like 20 minutes,

I think in real time. And so the degree of difficulty of standing there doing nothing. And then all of a sudden in the final 10 minutes of that first period, the chances you listed off, I don't think you even included the one where Evan Rodriguez kind of turns it over at his own blue line. Marner keeps it in and gets it to Nye's, Nyes, dances around Barkoff and gets a really quality look off that he just fires a little bit wide. But there were four or five of those, you know, five alarm chances for them. And Bobowski shut the door on all of them.

And I feel like that was a big crossroads moment here because in the wrong hands or if he wasn't up to the task, all of a sudden the game could have looked entirely different. And so in a weird way, despite how the first 10 minutes unfolded, getting to that first near Mission Zero Zero, was massive for the Panthers.

Yeah, and like they did in Game 5, they came out Guns of Blazing in the second period. I mean, game 5, second period, 3-0 score for the Panthers, shots are 1411, game 7, second period, three nothing Panthers, shots 18 to 5. And, you know, Austin Matthews, who isn't the most quotable superstar and pro sports had a good quote after the game about the Leafs

having too many passengers as the game went on. And I mean, I think that's a really good way to put it in terms of this pinching, pressuring the puck style that Florida plays to such an extreme. It can really snowball on you as the other team and, you know, create passengers out of the other team and that's clearly what happened here and you know there's lots to pick apart with with the Leafs and as you said we'll get to that but I you know the Panthers put on a clinic I mean one thing too is that I found that someone like so there's been a lot made of how many goals scores they've had this postseason which is by all means you know important 17 goals scores it's a time it's important but one guy Evan Rodriguez he brought him up zero goals for him he's got

four points in the playoffs he was injured at one point like it's been from a box score standpoint a ho-hum postseason for him but on that opening florida goal he has this great wall play move in the neutral zone that starts the sequence and gets it off and gets it to uh to jones and he fires it in um also in game three a really important like you know if we're talking about sliding door moments in game three the leaps are up two nothing they have a two nothing series least. lead. And again, it's Evan Rodriguez off the wall. He gets it in the neutral zone, off the wall, it starts the rush. It goes down to the offensive zone. It ends up back on the wall to him. He gets it out to a teammate, boom, goal. It's two one leaps instead of two nothing leaps and kind of

the rest is history in terms of where, in terms of the trajectory of the series. So I just want to point that out where it's like almost every player on the Panthers has contributed to this run a pretty meaningful way. And Rodriguez is a good example of a guy who has yet to score and only his four assists, but he's getting a lot of third assists, if you will. And just, you know, he kind of embodies the Panthers playing style in some ways, even though he's not this like crazy four checker. He's just so good at the little details.

No, that's a great shout. I think that play he made to set up the Jones opening goal is arguably one of the most important skills you can have, especially as a winger, in today's version of playoff hockey, right? That kind of play where you handle a puck around center ice. There's a defenseman bearing down on you in this case. It was Morgan Riley kind of trying to close that off. And, you know, he ultimately wasn't able to either get body or stick on puck in that case. But Rodriguez, that little bump off the wall into the middle to essentially just create this

open runway for a two on one or a three on two is just becoming so invaluable. In today's game, I thought even, you know, before that moment, you go. back and look at it. It's like a leaf's point shot that goes off a body. It kind of goes to the corner. Barcov retrieves it. Matthews is bearing down on him. We know how good at Matthews is as applying that back pressure of the stick lifts and the steals and everything that's in his repertoire there. And Barcov in protecting the puck essentially uses one hand on his stick, goes backhand with his right hand to get it out into the neutral zone for Rodriguez. I thought that was like one of those subtle little plays that you would never really pick up on. But Barcov just makes it look so smooth.

and effortless. So that is the theme for me here and what I wanted to really get into. You mentioned those Leafs chances in the first and the Lawton breakaway and then the Lawrence breakaway as well. Now on the Lawton one, I thought that Lusterina, who were going to talk more about, did a really good job of applying back pressure and kind of badgered them into not getting the highest quality look off as he tried to get that around, Bob. But that ultimately represented, and that's a great encapsulation of this series for me, because for all the talk about the star players and the guys of the top of the lineup and all the big names involved, the biggest difference between the two teams in this series for me boiled down to and, you know, at the risk of just being overly simplistic

here is what you saw from the bottom sixes in terms of offensive production, right? Because you look across the board and both Florida and Toronto's top lines generated six five-on-five goals in the series. They played each other to a draw. Lines to the Kachuk Bennett line, despite having a couple moments ultimately struggled in the aggregate in this series. I believe they got outscored 6-3 in Bennett's minutes. You had that offensive pop from Nealander and Tiberis early in the series, but they wound up playing to a draw, I believe, 6-6 as well in their 5-1-5 opportunities. Then you get to the bottom six. Florida's third line, and it feels almost sacrilegious to just refer to them as their third line because the way Lusdorina and Lundell and Kachukukukuk

play, they're so overqualified for that title. But they were up eight to three. in their minutes in this series of 5-1-5. And then the fourth line of Nosek, Greer and Gajewicz, which got kind of put together on the fly in game three as the series shifted to Florida, generated three goals and didn't give up any in the 28 minutes they played in the final four games of the series. Compared to the Leafs, who on their third line generates two goals, the fourth line gets outscored 4-1. They were down 4-1 with a sub-30% expected goal share in Lawton and Lorenz's minutes.

And so it kind of does come down to that a little bit, right? where in this game early on, it probably looks a little different if the Leafs 4th line is able to bury one of those glorious chances, it falls in the wrong hands and they don't execute. And then on the other end, as this game progresses,

that Panthers third line creates the 2-0 goal, creates the response for one goal and the third, and then ultimately seals it with the empty netter. And they were the best group in this series, right? I thought that third line, once again, they closed out the Tampa series in similar fashion, and they did it again here.

I thought those three guys were the most impactful forwards on either end throughout the series. Yeah, we need some sort of proper nickname for that line, the two fins and Marshand. I don't know if the PDO Discord can get going on and figure that one out. But yeah, like the Leaf's bottom six. So Max Domey's obviously part of that bottom six. He's the third line center. He scores three goals in this series. Or actually, I don't know if it's in the series or in the playoffs.

I think in the playoffs. Yeah, I'm talking full playoffs. But Max Domey is a pretty flawed player. He took some dumb penalties, you know, really is kind of like you live with the lows because the highs can be quite high. You know, he was pretty good in game seven, all things considered for the Leafs. So that's one guy. And then you've got, you know, Max Patchretti, who like is more of a second line guy by the end of the postseason but played some bottom six. He scores three goals.

But we sort of like half include him. Well, after that, it's one goal. I can't even remember off top of my head. I think it's Nick Robertson, actually, now that I give it two seconds of thought. Yeah, that goal was the Chris Ball meme of like hits a huge three to cut it to a 48 point deficit. Yeah, it was six nothing and Nick Robertson scores.

So I'm just trying to put into context, though, like nothing from Bobby McMahon, which is super disappointing for a guy that scored 20 goals in the regular season. And he had a slump going into the playoffs. So, you know, I don't know if it was, it's up to like 24 games without a goal. And he looked like, I were to like give him a grade on on sort of like putting aside the goals and assist and just

how did you look out there? He'd probably be like a C plus. Like he wasn't terrible. But then, you know, that that fourth line gave him nothing. And again, they had some chances throughout the series. They had some chances against Ottawa. But I just think that the finishing ability wasn't there. And I don't know, not many teams in the NHL build their bottom six to necessarily score a ton. But you need something. And clearly in this season, series, Florida got more than something from that third line. I mean, they've been nasty all playoffs. And of course, Marshan has this crazy stat where he's the only player in

NHL history to beat the same team five times in a game seven now. He stands alone with that very obscure stat, but also crazy nonetheless that he's just completely owned the leaves. I thought he was awesome in this game. He felt like he was the first to pretty much. every single loose puck and initiating a lot of these sequences. Let me give you a couple stats throughout this postseason and this series in particular that highlight the dominance of this line.

So they've led the Panthers in 5-1-5 goals created in both rounds one against Tampa and then now round two against the leaves in the two closeout games. Game 5, round one, game seven, round two. Yitu Listerina played 30 minutes. He has seven points in that time and the Panthers are up seven-nothing in his minutes on ice. He's tied. Lusterin is with McDavid.

been Randon and Kyle Connor for the league lead in 5-15 points. So far with 11, despite playing like 50 to 60 minutes, less than all those guys. In this series, they used, Paul Maris used them head-to-head against Willie Nealander and John Tavares for 36 minutes. They won those matchups 3-1. They played 28 minutes in particular a lion's share of that in games 3 and 4 when this series kind of flipped in Florida's favor against Martyr and Matthews as that primary assignment. and they held them to just one goal in that time.

And then in this one, they create the two nothing goal, the four one in particular, right? After Domi scores early in the third, you're like, all right, there's a bit of life in the building. Maybe the leaves can build on this. And then immediately 40 seconds later, it was the one final dagger. And it felt like that eliminated any visions they have of mounting a comeback.

I thought they were incredible. Both the goals they scored were very similar in Marshand, getting it on the wall, kind of flipping it towards an Ed, Lusterine, and winning a battle in front on the first one. He tips it, able to corral it. It pops to Lundell for the rebound on the second one. He tips it in himself. And not only did I think they're incredible, but the impact they have on this team is that

they afford the Panthers the benefit of getting away with Barkov and Reinhardt, essentially just playing the other team's top competition to a draw, which is what happened here, right? There was 53 minutes of Barkov versus Matthews. And you and I did the preview for this series. We talked about how when they met two years ago, it was a similar story of no goals were scored in that matchup. It was zero, zero. and the Panthers depth was able to win out. In this case, there were more goals on both sides of a 5-5, I believe, in those head-to-heads. But that's perfectly fine for the Panthers because that third line can step up. You expect more from the second line as well, and that's going to be good enough on most nights.

The Leafs, unfortunately, aren't afforded that luxury because of the way they've chosen to build out their roster, right? If the top line and Nylander aren't scoring, where else is the offense going to come from? And so you look at a series where the Panthers got five combined goals from Barkov, Reinhardt, Chuck Bennett, and Verhegey, pretty much all of their top goal scorers and still were able to win out. They were able to survive Reinhardt. You know, Reinhardt scores two goals. He scores that game three goal off the wild scramble in front of Joseph Wolan. And then he scores the 5-1 goal in this game. But he had 56 shot attempts, 14 high-danger chances, was not able to convert on the significant majority of those.

for Hagee had 58 shot attempts in the series, only 18 of them on net. It felt like even in this game, he was just open either kind of around the hash marks or in the slot with the puck on a stick and a dangerous shooting opportunity and not able to ultimately execute or do much with it. And it just didn't matter because that third line was so good that they were just crushing their minutes and creating more than enough offense for this Panthers team. Yeah, like the bull case for Florida is that Sam Ryanhard is shooting 9.8% right now in the playoffs.

Barkov is shooting 11.1 and Verhege is shooting 13.3. Those aren't super low, but without looking it up right now, those are probably below average. Maybe Varkov is around his average, but nevertheless, this is not a matter of them getting through to the conference final on the back of one line or even two lines. Yet those lines have been useful. And even like something I want to point out is like,

Matthew could chuck like so he has nine points in 12 games I would say hasn't had a signature performance in the playoffs yet unless I'm missing something but there's something about his ability to tow the line that's really

shone through especially against the Leafs in two separate occasions don't you wanted to fight him I can't remember which game it was probably game six no it was at the end of game five game five okay and then nice one to fight him

to fight them in game seven. And it's one of those, like, there's probably other instances, but this is just two obvious ones where on the broadcast, you can see the Leafs player saying, you want to go. And Kachuk just says, no, I'm going to do, I'm going to only fight on my own terms. I mean, we saw it the Four Nations face off that, you know, he initiated that fight to start the three in eight seconds. So there's just between him and Marchand and, I guess Bennett to some extent, like there's just a savvy to their

pesty ways. Whereas, you know, not to pile on domi, but I feel like, you know, when he gets riled up and he tries to be a pest, it usually ends up in minor penalties. So that's something as well where

Florida just has these guys that they see the line, they straddle the line, and sure, they cross the line sometimes, but they seem so well versed in what they can get away with. And they try not to do those things, but they everything else, that's borderline dirty. I'm obsessed with Anton Landel's facial hair situation right now.

He's growing these long hairs exclusively below his chin. Right now, I'm very curious if this playoff run for the Panthers progresses to see what comes of that. You know, on the theme of the secondary scoring, I think we need to add in contributions from defensemen of this series as well, especially when you watch how Seth Jones played in this game, and I want to get more into that. But, you know, through these seven games, the Panthers got six. goals they were talking about on the broadcast from their defensemen. The leaves got three,

two of them early on from Riley and then the one kind of Chris Tanev, knuckler from the point that wound up being Mabrovsky early in the series as well. But then you compare that to what the Panthers defensemen were doing. And Seth Jones was just out of this world in this game seven, right? I thought he was the best player on the ice. The first goal, I mean, it was a perfect shot coming down the wing, two on one against wall, kind of going just under the bar above the blocker. But I'd felt what stood out to me even more on that play was just the anticipation and timing on his part of reading that play progressing as it went from Barkoff to Reinhardt

and getting the jump on the Leafs and activating and really sprinting up and getting involved there. He had a couple other plays. I mean, the 3-0 goal where he reads the John DeVares bank pass off the boards, cuts off Neelander, doesn't touch the puck upon entry to allow Gajorish enough time to tag up and then helps create that goal. The one that really could have been for nothing where he similarly cuts off a Morgan Riley breakout pass, intercepts it in front of Marner, puts his shoulder down, drives it to the net,

and it winds up being called off because he kicked it in or obstructed wool, but that was an incredible play as well. He did that a couple other times that didn't result in scoring chances or goals, but he was just so involved in reading the play and neutralizing everything the leaves were trying to do in terms of breakout passes. And that's really where this, that's the story here where this game broke open, right?

the three goals by the Panthers in the second in what, a six minutes pan before you could even get to a TV timeout. It all just kind of came in a flurry in that point, snowballed. And the second period, you mentioned the 18-5 shots on goal for the Panthers here. I'll do you one better. Shot attempts were 40 to 14. High danger chances were 8-0.

Expected goals were 2 to 0.17 in the Panthers favor. And I was thinking about this as well. I feel like, you know, for the Panthers, we talk about scoring script kind of game environment in terms of the benefits of scoring first. I'd argue it's not that important for the Panthers because they just need to play this aggressively to be at their very best all the time. Like they almost need to be playing as if they're trailing to be pushing for offense. For the Leafs, though, I think that's where it really matters because if you go up early, I feel like you're able to better execute that game six game plan of sort of getting a defensive shell. playing absorb defense, allowing the Panthers to tire themselves out on the perimeter and kill time ultimately.

And then when the opportunity presents itself, get out on the counter with an odd man rush. All of a sudden, when you're down, one nothing, two nothing, three nothing in close succession, you have to open your game up, push more for offense, really push the pace and try to stretch the ice. And we saw them try to do so. And unfortunately, they just didn't have the horses to pull that off on the back end, right? Riley was responsible for a couple of mistakes, and he generally does have that in his back. but the other guys just aren't really equipped to play that type of a style, unfortunately. I think that gets back to the roster construction issue and the way they kind of box themselves in

and needing to play a very specific style of game to be effective. And all of a sudden, the Panthers are just able to tee off on the forecheck because they know the Leafs are going to be trying these bank passes off the boards and these home run stretch passes and they were just sitting all over it. And guys like Jones were just eating it up all night. Yeah. I'm going to read something straight from my notebook when I was watching the guys. game. After that 3-0 goal where Jones jumps up and takes Tavares's past that was supposed to go

to Nealander, how much of this is Florida being a juggernaut likely to repeat as cup champs and how much of this is Toronto fumbling the bag once again? And, you know, people like to default to like, oh, this is all the Leafs fault, this is all Leafs fault, but like they're playing an elite team right now. And I feel like that 3-0 goal was was a good sort of symbolic I guess embodiment of of this whole narrative and discourse where it's like it's really easy to jump on Tavares there because he gives the puck up and maybe even on Nielander too. But we got to give some credit to Seth Jones in his anticipation there. And it's one of those things where, you know, it's, you know, you show the replay and it's like,

oh, what was Tavares thinking there or, you know, Nielander's got to not cheat so much or whatever it is. And all that's fair and good. But, you know, there was something about, the way that the Panthers pinched in this series, that was just chef's kiss in terms of the precision, the timing, the anticipation, and Jones really took that to the next level in that game. And yeah, like I said, that 3-0 goal just seemed to sum up everything

in terms of taking a breath and going, okay, how much of this is the Panthers and how much of this is the Leafs? And, you know, is it maybe like 50-50? I don't know. It's hard to say definitively, but it's certainly not 100% the Leafs fault. I'm going to give almost 100%

to the Panthers here. I thought, I thought those plays by Jones were incredible and really speak to the way they played in this game, which I want to get more into after the break. But I think for the series, he played 25 more minutes than anyone else in this matchup. And he was just flying this game and showed no ill effects of that. So I'm choosing to give him full marks for that performance. All right, John, let's take our break here. And then we come back. We'll close out with other notes from the series and looking ahead. You're listening to the Hockey PEOcast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey PEOCast.

Join my John Mattis today. We're talking about Game 7 of Leaves Panthers from last night. I thought you were mentioned this earlier. I thought it was a crazy effort by the Panthers considering obviously the stakes of a Game 7, but also the game script and the score here. And I think the frustrations offensively coming out of Game 6 as well in kind of how they just broke through with brute force. In this one, the broadcast made a note of this, and I thought it was very indicative of

what you were seeing all night. You mentioned the 3-0 goal. I'll take it to this. Like there's about seven minutes left. It's 5-1. The game's over at this point. Yet the Panthers are still just fully pinching as if it's, they're down to 1 halfway through a regular season game.

Like both defense men are deep in the offensive zone, trying to keep plays alive, closing off the walls. And they just went, I mean, never stopping, just kind of full blast from the opening puck drop. They had a bit of that lull. in the back out for the first period where the leaves got a few looks, but for the most part, they just went in there with their game plan and executed it to a T. And the other thing I'll note on that is something I've been tracking in this series was I keep referencing

just how many hits Chris Tanev took in going back to retrieve Pucks. And I do think that's worth noting here as well because, I mean, it's Game 7 officiating. You're going to get Game 7 rulebook. And the only penalty we got in this game was a Chris Tanev, too many man a penalty where he kind steps on the ice early to essentially negate a two on a two on oh for barkov and and Rodriguez that was materializing and that's the only call I didn't think there was necessarily anything egregious but I did see a lot of what the Panthers really excel at and it's essentially you know you're talking about kind of playing within the lines and

maybe stepping over it but doing so in a calculated way knowing you're you're going to be able to get away with it for the most part like every time the Leafs would dump it in and you saw it this is a lot in game seven these like little minor obstructions where you delay the forechecker and bump them off their route or even knock them down at times to allow your defenseman to go back and retrieve the puck and that's reflected by the hit totals so panthers defenseman took 116 hits in this series through seven games forsling played 154 minutes he only took 10 on the other side the leaves defenseman took 220 hits.

And TANF himself had like 60% of what all seven Panthers defensemen that played in this series wound up absorbing. And so all this stuff is like, it's marginal enough in a vacuum. And I think BXO was even talking about this on the broadcaster in one of the intermissions that you're going to get away with each one because they just don't call that,

especially as the postseason progresses. But in a way, it adds up in the aggregate to be an incredibly crucial part of the game. it's almost, you know, for all the talk about Panthers throwing elbows and all these hits and stuff going over the line or late hits or whatever, it felt like that stuff's almost even more impactful or meaningful or kind of insidious in terms of how the game plays out, right? And so I think just the difference of what the two teams were able to do off the forecheck because of that was very evident throughout the series, but particularly so in this game.

Yeah, it's a lot of accidentally on purpose or like, oh, I'm just trying to get to the corner and I happen to run into this guy run them over or whatever, right? But, yeah, TANF in general, I mean, I saw earlier on Natural Static. He finishes the playoffs with 105 hits taken in 13 games. And Riley is second on that list at 58, which is just a ridiculous gap. And, you know, honestly, I think part of it is like very specific to Tanev, where he holds on to the puck for as long as possible before he releases it and makes that. And he's really good at breaking out puck.

It's a masterful way of doing business, but he certainly is welcoming the hits a lot more than the average defenseman, which I'm sure juices the numbers. But nevertheless, I mean, the fact that he left one of the games, I can't remember which one, for whatever, five, ten minutes. But other than that, I mean, he played every shift he could. And, you know, there's a lot of doom and gloom around the Leafs today, and, you know, rightfully so. but I think that McCabe and Tannave pairing is really something to build off of all, say, and heading into next year because they've found a real good chemistry, and I think that their skill sets really bounce off each other really well. And assuming that health holds up, I mean, these guys are both in their 30s and have played a lot of hockey,

assuming their health holds up, I mean, that's one of the positives going to next season where you can almost guarantee that they're going to be reliable every single game, every single shift. This Panthers team has now won nine of the last 10 playoff series. They've played during this run over the past three post seasons. I was thinking about this as well if we ever got, because there are all those stats about Palm Race. I believe he's 6 and 0 now in game sevens.

You mentioned the Marshand stuff, in particular against the Leafs in game seven. What would happen if we got to a situation where it was a Panthers, Stars? Stanley Cup final and I went to a game seven, considering the generational run to both him and Peterborough, simultaneously on in game sevens.

I guess the one thing we can bank on is that all of Finland would stay up to watch because there's such an incredible amount of high profile Finns playing in that game. But that would be a fun one to consider. I was also thinking in watching this game and really round two as a whole, the impact of deadline additions

and respective approaches, right? You saw it a similar effect in Jet Stars where on one end the stars go out and they had Granlin, they had Ranan. And Granlin has the hat trick. We know what Randinen has done over the past nine or ten games for the stars, whereas the jets wind up going home, holding $6 million in cap space or whatever. Their additions are Luke Shen and Brandon Tanev,

and you compare the impact they had compared to what the stars got from their guys. It was the same thing here, right? We just talked about what Marchand did as part of that line, but just particularly in this game, the impact Seth Jones had. and then the fourth line struggles for the Leafs with Lodin and how they contributed nothing offensively and then Brandon Carlo as well in terms of what the two teams got from their defensemen

and I really think it's important to distinguish kind of these two schools of thought right one is what the Panthers and the stars did and it's much more aggressive but adding good to great players that put you over the top acknowledging that you don't know what you're going to need from everyone over the course of a long playoff run, right?

All these kind of ebbs and flows, guys getting banged up, certain guys stepping up and contributing, depending on the series and the opponent. First, the opposite of getting too cute about adding, like, very specific archetypes to fill out the margins and falling into that trap of thinking, you know, we don't want to mess with what we got. We're set everywhere else.

So instead, we're going to focus on adding these specialized role players instead of difference makers. and I think that's a prevailing theme of this postseason as well in terms of what those two teams did and then what they got from those guys, especially in these series. Yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't connected the dots on that,

but it certainly shakes out that way. And, you know, Marshan, he gets traded for a conditional second. Well, now Bruins fans should be happy because they got their first. That second turns into a first, and all the hand-rigging can stop now because that seemed to be a real point of contention in Bruinsland.

Hey, how could you not get a first for Marshand? And how could you send him to our divisional rival? But yeah, he's been something else. And yeah, it's the deadline's so hard, right? Because there's so many instances of teams going all in, of loading up, and it blows up in their face. And they trade first round picks. And it's like, what was that for?

I mean, the Leafs are a good example of that in terms of Folino and some other players over the years. not coming through in the clutch. But I feel like if you were to go through the salary cap era and look at teams that loaded up versus Tinkered, I assume the loaded up teams go further in the playoffs, but it's hard to say. I mean,

it's certainly the case in this particular postseason. I mean, it's certainly very important to have a bunch of players with different skill sets that can do different things in different situations. But I just push back on the idea that like, oh, we already have too many good top of the lineup players. We're set and then feeling like that's going to be a, enough to get you through four rounds and win 16 playoff games.

I feel like we often see that that's not the case. Do you have any of the notes on the Panthers or do you want to get to the leaf side a little bit here? Let's get to the leaves. I mean, the game five parallels here of not only the six one score lines, but in particular you look back and for all the talk about, you know, you finally get over the hump in the regular season of winning the division, earning the privilege for home ice, and then these being your last two home games,

is certainly something them winning Game 6 the way they did was also very on brand in the sense that one thing they've genuinely excelled at during this run is winning those games

to extend it to Game 7 and put themselves in these positions and then contrasting that to essentially it being a means of just prolonging and maximizing the pain of blowing Game 7 in front of a catatonic home crowd

you saw that play out here you're based in Toronto, like you're going to be hearing a lot more about this. You obviously write about the team as well. I'm very curious to see the fallout. The immediate aftermath was after all the quotes from everyone involved of everyone essentially being like, whoa, this is going to be a big summer of change.

And obviously, Marner's UFA status is going to impact that. And I's an RFA and he's due for a massive deal. I'm not even really adding Tavares to that because I just assume he's going to be back, but he's technically a UFA as well. And so where are you kind of at with all of that? and the dust settling here, the performances as well, the extension of all this and kind of what that looks like and the crossroads they're at.

I mean, there's got to be something seismic. Like, I don't think you can turn around in a week and be like, hey, Mitch, we offered you a contract during the season and we want to sort of up our ante now after the playoffs. Like, I feel like the Marner ship has sailed. At least that's what it looks like from the outside. There's obviously still a chance that he resigns. is highly unlikely. Now it's, then it becomes a matter of, okay, what do you do with that, that cash that Mariner leaves on the table?

And, you know, if, if, if the way that I look at it is that, so if Marner leaves, then you're missing a top six winger, if you resign Tavares, it's got to be under the understanding that he's the third line center, not the second line center given where he's at in his career. He had a really strong regular season. But I think if you're kind of quote unquote doing him a solid by having him come back, you want that discount and a lesser role. And you can sort of, you can draw out his career a little bit longer in that instance. So then, again, you have a top six wing.

You got to replace him. You got a second line center. So are you able to figure that out with the savings from Tavares taking a haircut, Marner walking out the door? But you also need to consider, okay, what are we doing with the bottom six? Because as we discussed before, there's a serious lack of offensive punch there. And another area that I would like them to at least address, even if it's in a small way, is some sort of more dynamic skill on the blue line. I think that Tree Living's done a really good job of revamping the blue line.

Like that's kind of his, at the top of his resume in terms of what he's done in Toronto. Like it's night and day versus what Dubas had. So, you know, I want to give him props for that. But it feels like especially as Riley devolves a little bit as he gets older, I feel like they're really lacking a guy who can. do something with the puck because at the end of the day you've got Carlo you've got Benoit you've got that shutdown pair

of McCabe and Tanev and then you got Oliver Ekman-Larsen like they all bring lots to the table individually but I feel like you need that like Shane Goss despair type of player in there so that's where I stand in terms of like the needs the priorities in the summer and you know we could talk all day

about like should Shanahan be gone what kind of new structure would be front of office look like is tree living the present then he brings in a GM that's younger and that he can kind of mentor and whatnot. I don't know. That's probably not the conversation for this type of reactionary episode. But there's a lot of moving parts there. And I just think that they need to look at it as like we're replacing Marner with multiple pieces here versus like going out and trying to find a direct replacement. Yeah. I thought Bruce, Rubay's post game was interesting.

And I wanted to get into that because, you know, there's obviously a lot of talk. And I think he even said as such about it being more of a mentality issue in terms of why this keeps happening and how that game seven plays out. And listen, there's no denying that the Panthers are just total dogs on the other end of the spectrum. And sort of in this game, as it progressed, just demoralize them or taking it to them and the Leafs just had no real response to it. I'm just, I feel like that's a bit lazy, though, to just. just portray it as them not wanting it enough. I know the optics kind of wind up looking that way. But for me, the bigger concern,

and it's something we've talked about for how long now, is whether it's a skill issue and whether they just weren't good enough in this matchup. Because, you know, they're 0 and 7 now in winner take all games, the game 7s and the game 5 in the 2020 bubble against the Blue Jackets. They've scored between zero and one, goal in every single one of those games. I think they had four goals in 2017-18 the first time against the Bruins and lost 7-4 in that game, but after that it's 1-0-1-1-1-1.

And so the offense completely drying up when it matters most and it happening every time and just not being able to generate enough and yet continuing to instead bear your hand in the sand and then push in the other direction to the point where you really need a performance like they had in game six where you just stifle everything defensively, pitch a shutout and that's your only means for victory. I feel like that's ultimately not a very reasonable expectation or a good game plan to head into the playoffs with. And so I'm very curious to see what the response is to that and whether they keep going in this direction and sort of missing some of the signs or the, you know, flashing red lights that are very evident there. Well, and Marner's obviously,

if you look at his, the way he plays the game and how he's more of a perimeter player and He's a craftier player than like a straight line player. You know, you can connect the dots in terms of, like you said, like not producing in those game sevens because things tighten up even more than they do from regular season to playoffs. Like game seven is a whole other level of tight checking. So this is their out with Marner, right? They can let them walk.

Would it have been great if they got ranting out at the deadline if they got Marr to accept the no move waving? Certainly. Would it be even better, you know, in hindsight if they'd traded him some other way, of course. But you don't know how that's going to work out. It's easy to say now. And, you know, plus the guy has a no move clause. But they have a chance here to turn the page.

I think it would be silly to resign him as far as just banging your head against the wall for 10 years. Like we're at year nine. You don't have to do it for a 10th year. And also they've tried everything. Well, not everything maybe, but a lot of different approaches around. these core players. I mean, they tried to bring in leadership with the Joe Thorntons and Patrick Marlowe. They tried the sandpaper route with Ryan Reeves and a whole host of other guys.

Like I said before, they revamped the blue line, which was, you know, that's in good shape. That's a positive still. The goaltending's been fixed. That's a positive still. So it's like you start going around in circles in terms of like, oh, well, I mean, at the end of the day, there needs to be some sort of breakthrough ability in those game sevens, in those elimination games. And the sample size is quite big now.

And not every single instance you go, oh, this is the star's fault 100%. But the way that Game 7 turned out where they had no pushback, I mean, it's clearly embedded in some way in some sort of like intangible, unquantifiable way. It's embedded in this team in some capacity that they are kind of the anti-Panthers in a lot of ways.

I mean, the most incredible stat of the postseason, in my opinion, is that since 2003, the Panthers are 17 and 0 when leading after one period. And when leading after two periods, they're 26 and 0. Like, they're absolute killers. And I don't know what the Leafs are like in those situations, but I can guarantee you they're not undefeated. And obviously, they're not undefeated. They probably don't have a great record. Like, this is, we're talking about two different teams here in terms of how they're able to adapt midgame. and the sample size, again, with this core is so big that it's, even though it might not make

sense logically to sort of let such an elite player in a vacuum leave, it makes sense to let them leave given the history here. Yeah, I mean, those seven-winner take-all games, I believe Marner has two assists and zero goals in 150 minutes played in that time, and it's become very difficult to argue otherwise. I do think, though, you know, in terms of being careful what you wish for, like, I think it sounds good because it's a big salary to say, well, we have needs elsewhere. We're going to diversify our team by adding multiple salaries since you're probably not going to replace a one for one with a player who makes that that amount of money, although they tried to do so with

random at the deadline. For all of his flaws, I just think it's going to be very difficult to replace the value and contribution that he does provide in the aggregate by doing so. And so we'll see. I think certainly, you know, Matthews and the chronic injury and his shooting ability as this season progressed throughout the regular, back out of the regular season. And then into this postseason where, you know, he breaks through and he scores the goal to win game six. But he winds up for this series with one goal on 50 shot attempts, especially kind of hampering his ability, I think, to properly shoot high. And he was certainly trying to do so against Bobrovsky.

Ironically, the one goal he did score was along the ice through the five hole. But otherwise, just not really being able to be the player. a goal scorer that he typically is. That's certainly a factor here. How do you sort of compare this and result in this disappointment to the previous ones, right? Because on the one hand,

I think the positive is I just think the Panthers were a better team. And so the fact that you push them to game seven of a round two and got that far is a good thing. They're defending champs, and I think they're an incredible team. And the quality opponent here in particular factors into it

where you look at them compared to some of the other previous shortcomings against teams like the blue jackets or the haves. That season, I think those two things are wildly different. Yet on the other hand, you look at it a bit closer and you're excruciatingly close to a three nothing lead. In that game three, you have these two absolute stink bombs in your final two home games in game five and seven and the optics of that. And then the stakes of all of these upcoming contracts and what they look like and you put those two together. And I don't really know how to feel about it. Yeah, like I can't say definitively one way or another, but I'll say it's the worst just based on the fact that there's no way to separate the baggage

from this series in particular where it'd be great to do that. It'd be great if this was the second time they got defeated in the playoffs because if you look at it without any other context, they've never gone further. They've never won three games in the second round. They've only won two series in this whole nine-year span. So objectively, them getting to games, seven against a really good Panthers team defending champs they could repeat that's you know if you

told them that at the beginning of the season they would go okay we would have loved to make the conference final but hey sometimes you you don't win the big game um but the way it all went down like even you go back to the the ottawa series that they had a game five stinker there too so there's it's those lows that really devastate people and again it's you know it's very difficult to say point to the Montreal loss many years ago, where they were clearly on paper a better team and go, that was the worst, just because the baggage was not as heavy as it is now.

And I just, I don't know if you can separate the two. Like it's, I'd like to. And I think it kind of becomes unfair how much people pile on, especially the day after or the night of these collapses. But it's just the sample size is so big now that it's hard not to just like link it all together and just, you know, think about it through the lens of the big picture and that these

guys once again didn't get it done. They certainly did not. All right, John, we got to get out of here. Plug some stuff. I know you wrote about this game and you're going to be covering the playoffs and moving forward as well. Let the listeners know about that. Yeah, sure.

I mean, I guess I plug a story wrote recently on goalies and how they recover from letting in goals. I actually dropped the link in the PDO cast Discord, contribute. corner if you've never been. So you can check it out there. Or if you're not in the PDO cast Discord, follow me on Twitter at Mattis John. That's M-A-T-I-S-S-D, J-O-H-N.

And I post all my stories there or retweeted from the score's main account. So that's the best way to find my stuff and I'll continue covering the playoffs, even though the Leafs are out, and also get into some draft stuff here. That's why you're the best. Nice little plug there for the discords

that I don't have to. Yeah, I know that Contributors' Corner section is heating up. So join us there and you can keep up with everything. John writes and all of our other recurring guests. Give us a five-star review wherever you listen to the show. And speaking of if you listen to Spotify, we've had some issues with the feed there recently. I believe the last two shows didn't get posted.

The show is up. You can find it on all the other podcast apps. You can also go on the SportsSail website. And we've got a section there for the PDO cast and all the new episodes are up there. everyone in the behind the scenes is aware of the issue. It's going to hopefully be resolved. But apologies to everyone that uses Spotify that hasn't been able to listen to the past couple shows. That's all for us.

For today, I'll have a conference finals preview coming with Jack Hodd before those games kickoff on Tuesday night. Thank you for listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.