Berube expecting physical series as Leafs set to clash with Panthers in second round
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Mitch Marner and his wife, Stephanie, welcomed their first child, a baby boy, on Sunday morning.
"Obviously he's in a good mood," said coach Craig Berube. "He's probably flying high right now. I mean, I remember I had my first child and it's a different feeling for sure. It's one of the best feelings you'll ever have, in my opinion, and I'm sure he's very excited. He'll be excited tomorrow."
Marner missed Sunday's practice to be with his family, but will rejoin the team for Game 1 of their second round playoff series against the Florida Panthers on Monday.
"He needs to get a little skate in in the morning," said Berube. "It will be a lot of good positive things on his mind, which is good."
Marner was second on the Leafs with eight points in the six-game series win over the Ottawa Senators in the first round.
"He was great," said centre John Tavares. "Almost takes your mind away from it a little bit. Wondering when it's going to come, when it's going to happen, but he did a good job of just focusing on playing and worrying about what he could and knowing when the time comes, it'll all work out, which it did."
Tavares and his wife Aryne welcomed their third child, a daughter, during the playoffs two years ago.
"Gives you tremendous perspective and meaning to life and [you] see things really, really differently," said Tavares, who also has two sons. "Anyone becoming a parent, becoming father, it's pretty remarkable. For him, he's probably been real emotional and probably just [soaking] it all in."
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Toronto's top line of Marner, Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies will likely be matched up against Florida's top line, which is led by two-time Selke Trophy winner Aleksander Barkov.
"You gotta fight for every inch," said Matthews. "He's big. He's strong. He's good in the faceoff circle. He's probably the best two-way player, two-way centre in the league, in my opinion."
Barkov is nominated for the Selke Trophy for a fourth time. This year he has company as his linemate Sam Reinhart, who led the team with 39 goals in the regular season, is also nominated for the award, which is given to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game. It's only the fifth time that teammates have been nominated for the Selke Trophy in the same season.
"They're very good 200-foot players and they have offensive abilities, obviously," said Berube. "Reinhart can score. Barkov does a little bit of everything. It's always a challenge playing against great players like that. They [Matthews line] got to do a good job checking, but as a group, as a team, we do. And you gotta fight for your space out there. There's not going to be any easy ice, and we know that."
The challenge will start at the faceoff circle. Barkov is winning 59.3 per cent of his draws in the playoffs, which is second overall (minimum 75 faceoffs).
Matthews leads that category at 59.5 per cent.
"He's got tremendous hands and timing with the puck all over the ice," Tavares said. "So not surprising that he brings that to the dot along with his size and his leverage that he can create. Very intelligent player. It's a chess match in there sometimes and being able to read your opponent and get a feel for things and get a sense of your timing."
Matthews is actually winning more faceoffs in the playoffs than the regular season (56.8 per cent).
"He's shown tremendous, I don't know if 'growth' is the right word, but he just keeps getting better and better," said Tavares. "That part of his game is just becoming really well-rounded."
The Leafs are the best faceoff percentage team in the playoffs at 56.6. The Panthers are ninth at 49.3 per cent.
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Berube was asked by Postmedia's Steve Simmons how much composure matters when facing a "mean" team like the Panthers.
"Are they mean?" the coach responded.
Simmons clarified that the Panthers play a meaner game, or harder game, than most teams.
"They play a hard game, I agree," Berube acknowledged. "They forecheck hard and they're in your face the whole game. I don't necessarily think it's 'mean.' That’s just their game. I think we're a physical team too."
After leading the NHL in hits in the regular season, the Panthers have landed the most hits per 60 minutes in the playoffs.
The Leafs rank 12th in hits per 60 in the postseason.
"We got to go out and be physical ourselves," Berube stressed. "We got to initiate as much as possible. And, yeah, you're going to get banged around and they're going to come and they're going to hit and that's just part of it. And I thought Ottawa did the same thing to us. They're physical. They're honest. They're hitting. And I thought we handled it well."
The Senators are second in the playoffs in hits per 60.
"Ottawa was kind of a good little jumpstart for us to lead into Florida," said goalie Anthony Stolarz. "They kind of play a little similar system, tough rugged style, so going forward that was nice to kind of get a little bit of a warm-up in. Now, we're going to have go out there and they're king of the castle having won the Stanley Cup last year."
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Stolarz is one of three former Panthers on the Leafs.
"I was tight with a lot of guys there," the 31-year-old said. "We had a pretty tight-knit group. Obviously, you achieve the things that we did you tend to stay in touch."
Stolarz lists Reinhart, winger Matthew Tkachuk and defenceman Aaron Ekblad as his closest friends on the Panthers. He hasn't spoken to any of his former teammates since a brief post-game hallway catch-up on April 8 when the Leafs last faced Florida.
Stolarz held up well against Senators winger Brady Tkachuk in the opening round and feels like he has a pretty good idea what big brother will try to do in the second round.
"Saw one Tkachuk in round one and you get another one in round two," Stolarz said with a grin. "I'm familiar with him having played with him last year. He's a hard worker. He likes to get in the crease and around the paint and that's kind of where his office is. You're going to want to be aware when he's on the ice."
Reinhart and Stolarz also caught up when the Panthers visited Toronto in March. They have a connection beyond the ice.
"He gave me my cat," Stolarz said. "He was just walking one night and the cat followed him and his wife home and they were looking for a family and my wife and I just decided it would be best to take it in, and the rest is history."
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Stolarz is relishing the opportunity to go up against his one-time mentor Sergei Bobrovsky.
"You're going to want to go out there and outduel him and hope for some goalie battles," Stolarz said. "At the end of the day, it's about making one more save than the other guy."
Stolarz posted a .901 save percentage in the first round while Ottawa's Linus Ullmark was at .880.
Bobrovsky also posted a .901 save percentage in the first round. Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy finished the five-game series against Florida with an .872 save percentage.
Stolarz led the league with a .926 save percentage in 34 games in the regular season. Bobrovsky posted a .906 save percentage in 54 games.
But the Panthers goalie has a significant experience advantage. Stolarz never started a playoff game before this season. Bobrovsky, of course, backstopped Florida to a Stanley Cup and is a two time Vezina Trophy winner. Monday will be his 100th playoff game.
"It doesn't matter if it's a Vezina winner, Hall of Famer, guy making his first start down at the other end, it's your job to go out there and stop the puck," said Stolarz.
The New Jersey native isn't overthinking the challenge.
"Just do what we did in round one," Stolarz said. "I really liked the way that we played. The guys really made me feel comfortable back there. I'll just continue to battle. We gotta get to the net on him and just win the battle in the trenches in front of our net and in front of their net."
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Max Pacioretty started Game 6 in Ottawa on the second line with Tavares and William Nylander. In the third period, the 36-year-old was dropped to the fourth line with Max Domi and Pontus Holmberg.
"I wanted a little bit more speed on that line at that time," Berube explained.
Senators coach Travis Green was matching Tim Stutzle against the Tavares line.
"He was moving," Berube said of the German centre. "He was coming with a lot of speed."
Bobby McMann replaced Pacioretty, who eventually scored the winning goal, on the second line.
Pacioretty was back beside Tavares and Nylander at Sunday's practice.
"Patch wants to go in and use his strength and the type of power he brings, the physicality," said Tavares. "And obviously you saw on the winner, the type of goal scorer he is, the shot, the release, how to get open, how to find good ice, especially in the middle of the ice, which is hard to do. It felt pretty good, especially in a big game like that. Hadn't played together in a little while, I thought as the night went on things got better and better."
After being a healthy scratch in the first two games against Ottawa, Pacioretty led the Leafs with 23 hits over the final four games of the series.
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Berube has been stressing the importance of composure to his players and likes what he sees so far.
"I think our leaders have done a great job," the coach said. "I hear them on the bench talking, not just Matthews and Marner, it's lot of guys. [Chris] Tanev, [Jake] McCabe, these guys. Just stick with it, being patient and not letting your emotion get too involved in everything. Yes, you need emotion to play this game, but it has to be directed in the right way."
If there's one guy that Berube doesn't need to worry about when it comes to composure it's Nylander, who scored twice in the Game 6 win in Ottawa.
"Nothing bothers him," said Berube. "He just goes out and plays ... Talk about composure, he's pretty composed. Maybe sometimes too much."
The coach let out a big laugh.
Nylander led the Leafs with nine points in the first round.
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Lines at Sunday's practice:
F
Knies - Matthews - Robertson*
Pacioretty - Tavares - Nylander
Lorentz - Laughton - Jarnkrok
McMann - Domi - Holmberg
Kampf
D
McCabe - Tanev
Rielly - Carlo
Benoit - Ekman-Larsson
Mermis - Myers
Hakanpää
G
Stolarz
Woll
Hildeby
Power play units at Sunday's practice:
PP1
QB: Rielly*
Flanks: Nylander, Matthews
Middle: Tavares
Net front: Knies
PP2
QB: Rielly
Flanks: Ekman-Larsson, Domi
Middle: McMann
Net front: Pacioretty
*Marner absent