Edited Aug. 9, 2022 at 11:25 p.m.
Quoting: MatthewsFan
In the playoffs, the Leafs’ bottom six – which included some combination of Ilya Mikheyev, Pierre Engvall, David Kampf, Ondrej Kase, Colin Blackwell, Jason Spezza, Kyle Clifford, and Wayne Simmonds – combined for three goals, and Mikheyev scored two empty netters. By comparison, Tampa Bay’s bottom six of Ross Colton, Nick Paul, Branden Hagel, Corey Perry, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and Patrick Maroon combined for 10 goals (no empty netters). However we slice it, the gap in depth scoring was significant.
In the playoff previous, the Leafs’ bottom six contributed four goals – Jason Spezza scored three of them, and one came when he moved into the top six. Joe Thornton scored the other on the power play. In the year before against Columbus, the only bottom-six forward (in terms of time on ice) to score at all was Nick Robertson.
This has been a consistent problem for three years running under this management regime. The difference this past playoff is that the top forwards were full marks for producing. While we hear all the time that a team lives and dies by its stars – which is largely true – when the gap is this tight between top teams, every single player matters.
In previous years, the Leafs loaded the first line with ice time – because they had nothing in the bottom six – and it gassed their top players. This year, they did have some substance in the bottom six – specifically, the third line was legitimately solid – but they weren’t able to provide much offensively. The fourth line was generally a nonfactor outside of taking penalties.
Edit:
But yes, lets add more toughness
You can't compare bottom 6 production...its a useless comparison because is so highly depends on the strength of defense from the opposition and everyone knows the Leafs don't have a defensive depth. So are you honestly surprised Tampa's bottom 6 outscored the Leafs? Come on, you're failing to look at the entire picture.
Nobody said anything about toughness. I said, the Leafs need better defense. They don't have the defense depth period. Giordano as your 2nd pairing??? Giordano is a 3rd liner or 7th man on great teams. That's just flat out bad. Brodie, who's a fine defenseman as your first pairing? He's a 2nd pairing on most good teams.
If you want to argue about possession, that's fine, but when the average playoff team over the last 10 years needs 3.2 goals to win a playoff game, it's clear scoring is not the problem for the Leafs. If you have great defensive depth and pretty good goaltending or alternatively solid defensive depth and great goaltending, 3 goals wins a game no problem in the playoffs. The leafs have struggled with both and that's why scoring 3 goals or more couldn't close out a series for them.