If you stayed tuned into Sportsnet following the Leafs 6-2 victory over the Senators in Game One, you would have been led to believe that Toronto pulled off nothing short of an Easter miracle defeating the Senators who were just so physical the Leafs had no business being in that game at all. The trope of toughness wins championships was prevalent, but arguably they were praising the wrong team for the toughness.
While the Senators did hit the Leafs, hit them hard, and hit them often, they were also incredibly late and undisciplined with those hits. The Senators gave the Leafs six powerplays and Toronto capitalized on three of them. That nature of those penalties included boarding, cross-checking, and high sticking, definitely an attempt to show they can play tough, but apparently struggling to keep it within the boundaries of the rules.
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Batherson is called for tripping
&mdash; <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:puwdi3kzppd6ekvrtw5advlh?ref_src=embed">Omar (@tictactomar.bsky.social)</a> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:puwdi3kzppd6ekvrtw5advlh/post/3lnbx2lzoxc2v?ref_src=embed">2025-04-21T00:50:28.825Z</a></blockquote>
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Of course, there were the 56 legal hits thrown (compared to the Leafs 30) that showed that the Senators wanted to impose themselves physically on Toronto. The interesting variance here is that 50 of those hits came from the Senators forwards and only 6 were from their defencemen (in contrast the Leafs&#8217; defence threw eight hits), and not a single hit was thrown from Ottawa&#8217;s top pairing. Maybe you can make a case for the Senators establishing a forecheck as they did outshoot the Leafs, and had 64% of the game&#8217;s shot attempts and 65% of the game&#8217;s expected goals and that seems beneficial but aside from Brady Tkachuk&#8217;s 11 individual shot attempts, the next three highest players on the Senators shot attempts list were defencemen, pointing to low percentage shooting from the point making up the difference in what would otherwise be more of a balanced 5v5 attempt matchup. (Senators had 18 low danger, 4 medium danger, and 5 high danger 5v5 shots on Stolarz.)
There is also something interesting about who the Senators players were hitting. When it comes to hits taken the top four Leafs were McCabe, Carlo, Tanev, and Benoit. All of these players can absolutely take a hit and demonstrated their comfort in doing so to make the play. In previous years the Leafs strategy in the playoffs seemed to be let their opponent arrive at the puck first and attempt to position themselves to defend against them. It hasn&#8217;t gone well. Since the first day of training camp, Craig Berube has encouraged puck battles and winning the race to the puck and understandably having Tanev and Carlo as part of the blueline now makes doing that a bit easier and the results have paid off.
Another encouraging outcome when it comes to taking hits is from Mitch Marner. Marner took three hits, second highest among Leafs forwards and that didn&#8217;t take him out of the game. In fact, he ended up with a 5v5 goal and an overall three-point night. Marner not being shy about the tough parts of the ice is a strong early sign for the Leafs, and one that was mirrored by John Tavares taking a beating to earn an important powerplay and Matthew Knies scoring in the paint. The Leafs, at least against the Senators, look like they aren&#8217;t setting up exclusively on the perimeter.
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MATTHEW KNIES 🚨THE FANTASTIC FIVE WILL NOT BE STOPPED!
&mdash; <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:puwdi3kzppd6ekvrtw5advlh?ref_src=embed">Omar (@tictactomar.bsky.social)</a> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:puwdi3kzppd6ekvrtw5advlh/post/3lnbzmbfgts2v?ref_src=embed">2025-04-21T01:36:09.140Z</a></blockquote>
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Game One was just that, one game. As great as it would be to declare the Leafs fixed when it comes to the playoffs, proving they can do this on a regular basis and not taking too much comfort in a 6-2 drumming of the Sens as a sign they can take the foot off the gas. If the Leafs are intending to go on a run, now is the time to build out these good practices and possibly instill a few more that cut into the chance deficit they have been facing on a nightly basis. For now, they out skill their opponent, but that is unlikely to be the case if they move beyond this round and they&#8217;ll need to be prepared for bigger players landing those hits and probably in a more disciplined fashion than what was seen in Game One.
Data from <a href="http://naturalstattrick.com">Natural Stat Trick</a>

If you stayed tuned into Sportsnet following the Leafs 6-2 victory over the Senators in Game One, you would have been led to believe that Toronto pulled off nothing short of an Easter miracle defeating the Senators who were just so physical the Leafs had no business being in that game at all. The trope of toughness wins championships was prevalent, but arguably they were praising the wrong team for the toughness.

While the Senators did hit the Leafs, hit them hard, and hit them often, they were also incredibly late and undisciplined with those hits. The Senators gave the Leafs six powerplays and Toronto capitalized on three of them. That nature of those penalties included boarding, cross-checking, and high sticking, definitely an attempt to show they can play tough, but apparently struggling to keep it within the boundaries of the rules.

https://bsky.app/profile/tictactomar.bsky.social/post/3lnbx2lzoxc2v

Of course, there were the 56 legal hits thrown (compared to the Leafs 30) that showed that the Senators wanted to impose themselves physically on Toronto. The interesting variance here is that 50 of those hits came from the Senators forwards and only 6 were from their defencemen (in contrast the Leafs' defence threw eight hits), and not a single hit was thrown from Ottawa's top pairing. Maybe you can make a case for the Senators establishing a forecheck as they did outshoot the Leafs, and had 64% of the game's shot attempts and 65% of the game's expected goals and that seems beneficial but aside from Brady Tkachuk's 11 individual shot attempts, the next three highest players on the Senators shot attempts list were defencemen, pointing to low percentage shooting from the point making up the difference in what would otherwise be more of a balanced 5v5 attempt matchup. (Senators had 18 low danger, 4 medium danger, and 5 high danger 5v5 shots on Stolarz.)

There is also something interesting about who the Senators players were hitting. When it comes to hits taken the top four Leafs were McCabe, Carlo, Tanev, and Benoit. All of these players can absolutely take a hit and demonstrated their comfort in doing so to make the play. In previous years the Leafs strategy in the playoffs seemed to be let their opponent arrive at the puck first and attempt to position themselves to defend against them. It hasn't gone well. Since the first day of training camp, Craig Berube has encouraged puck battles and winning the race to the puck and understandably having Tanev and Carlo as part of the blueline now makes doing that a bit easier and the results have paid off.

Another encouraging outcome when it comes to taking hits is from Mitch Marner. Marner took three hits, second highest among Leafs forwards and that didn't take him out of the game. In fact, he ended up with a 5v5 goal and an overall three-point night. Marner not being shy about the tough parts of the ice is a strong early sign for the Leafs, and one that was mirrored by John Tavares taking a beating to earn an important powerplay and Matthew Knies scoring in the paint. The Leafs, at least against the Senators, look like they aren't setting up exclusively on the perimeter.

https://bsky.app/profile/tictactomar.bsky.social/post/3lnbzmbfgts2v

Game One was just that, one game. As great as it would be to declare the Leafs fixed when it comes to the playoffs, proving they can do this on a regular basis and not taking too much comfort in a 6-2 drumming of the Sens as a sign they can take the foot off the gas. If the Leafs are intending to go on a run, now is the time to build out these good practices and possibly instill a few more that cut into the chance deficit they have been facing on a nightly basis. For now, they out skill their opponent, but that is unlikely to be the case if they move beyond this round and they'll need to be prepared for bigger players landing those hits and probably in a more disciplined fashion than what was seen in Game One.

Data from <a href="http://naturalstattrick.com">Natural Stat Trick</a>

Taking the hit to make the play, Leafs demonstrate practical toughness in Game 1

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