If experience is the best teacher, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube delivered some lessons that his Ottawa Senators counterpart Travis Green may quickly need to absorb, if the Battle of Ontario is to extend past this weekend.

Berube revamped the Maple Leafs’ identity during his first season with the club, turning the team into a pragmatic, north-south offence that values getting pucks to the net and risk mitigation. Green did an admirable job during the regular season, but he was clearly outfoxed in Game 1, and all the pressure is on the Senators’ rookie head coach ahead of Game 2.

During Game 1, Berube made a subtle adjustment, dropping Max Domi down to Toronto’s third line, while moving Pontus Holmberg up to the second line with John Tavares and William Nylander. To be clear, Holmberg-Tavares-Nylander isn’t necessarily the Leafs’ optimal second line, but Berube used the regular season to build enough potential combinations, and he was situationally aware, knowing he won’t have to use all his tricks during Game 1 against an overmatched opponent. Green seemingly made no adjustments at all, and defended his team’s performance after the 6-2 loss, which may endear himself to his players, but it’s not fooling anyone else.

“There’s potential for changes every game,” Green said Monday via The Athletic’s Julian McKenzie.

This type of gamesmanship isn’t going to work against Berube, who has seen it all before and won the Stanley Cup in 2019 with the St. Louis Blues. Toronto were transparent about giving starting goaltender Anthony Stolarz a rest day at practice Monday, and while Berube often keeps his decisions to himself, until the last possible moment, he’s more secure about his team, boasting a superior, more experienced roster that wasn’t fazed by the bright lights of the playoffs.

Some have argued that the Senators’ superior expected goals and shot differential in Game 1 should inspire confidence, or rather, lends itself to the false conclusion that they were the victim of poor luck. And we’re not saying you have to discard analytics when it doesn’t suit your point, but watching Game 1, it’s impossible to conclude that the Senators were merely beat off the counterattack, or lost because of shoddy penalty killing. It was a thorough beating, and Green was insistent that everything is fine, coming to the defence of Linus Ullmark, who was lit up by the Maple Leafs and saved -2.6 goals above expected in all situations — again, if you want to provide an analytics-based defence of the Senators while ignoring score effects, this has to be mentioned — while Stolarz balled out to the tune of 31 saves and 1.47 goals saved above expected.

Green argued that the Maple Leafs were trying to sell calls, a notion that Auston Matthews rejected Monday. And even if the Leafs were trying to sell calls, it clearly worked, getting their scorching power play back onto the ice, scoring three times in Game 1. Ottawa tried to intimidate a confident Toronto team and it didn’t work at all. If the Senators arrive at the conclusion they were the superior team at 5-on-5 and just have to keep the Maple Leafs’ power play off the ice, this could be a very short series.

Toronto is expected to run back the same lineup for Game 2, with Holmberg getting initial minutes with Tavares and Nylander. If that combination doesn’t work, or doesn’t suit Berube, he can always bring Bobby McMann into a top-six role (that’s the optimal combination!) but after Game 1, there’s no need to overhaul what’s working.

All the pressure is on Green and the Senators entering Game 2. How they respond to the challenge will dictate if the Battle of Ontario is a real conflict, or just a brief spat between rivals.