WaFd Bank Weekly Warmup: June 1

June is usually the month when Stanley Cup champions skate their victory lap after the traditional series-ending handshakes between opposing teams. Hockey fans will have to wait until early July for that always emotional moment this postseason. But that doesn't mean June will be lacking drama.
Let's drop the first
WaFd Bank
Weekly Warmup puck for the first of five columns in June:

Tough Night in Toronto

It is hard to imagine the hurt among Toronto Maple Leafs fans as their squad left the ice on the wrong end of a first-round Game 7 against-really?-Original Six rival Montreal. Toronto was up 3-1 in games in the series and finished in first place in the all-Canada North Division.
Montreal, which finished as the 18th best team in the NHL this season (making the final 16 based on four teams qualifying from each of the four one-year-only divisions), needed overtime to beat the Leafs in Games 5 and 6 in the series. When Canadiens forward Corey Perry scored to make it 2-0 MTL mid-second period, no doubt fans on both sides were thinking, well, Toronto was down in the last two games before tying it to force overtime.

No such rally Monday. Canadiens star goalie Carey Price saw to that with a bevy of big saves in the final 25-plus minutes. Montreal went up 3-0 on a late empty-net goal before Price allowed the single TOR goal with a minute-and-a-half remaining.
Toronto players looked stunned at game end. Star scorer Auston Matthews appeared more composed than most teammates going through the handshake line, plus moments earlier was clearly was encouraging downcast Leafs goalie Jack Campbell.

Tough Decades in Toronto

The Maple Leafs last won a Stanley Cup in 1967. That's hard enough on Toronto faithful.
But since winning a seven-game playoff series against Ottawa in 2004, Toronto hasn't made it past the first round. From 2004 through 2012, the Leafs didn't make the playoffs at all (seven seasons plus a lockout year).

In 2013, Toronto was up 4-1 in the third period against Boston, but lost the game and the series. Three missed postseasons followed, with three high draft choices resulting in the aforementioned Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander.
From 2017 through 2019, Toronto dropped series to Washington and Boston twice-both in seven-game series with the Bruins. Last summer, Toronto lost to Columbus in the Qualifying Round.
The unfinished business in Toronto seeps into another summer. It is too early to project what changes, if any, will be made in the front office. You have to figure the roster will be reworked. The heartache comes first.

Reflecting on Montreal Moments

While the greatness of goalie Carey Price in the first round is an obvious starting point to laud the Canadiens, there are a couple of players who stand out for the less noticed detail that lead to epic comebacks in a series.

Start with Montreal center Phillip Danault, who didn't score a goal in the seven games with Toronto, adding only one assist, yet averaged more than 20 minutes per game and notched a minus-3 in the overrated plus-minus stat column (goals scored by the team when a player is on the ice minus goals scored against).
That topped all MTL forwards. Surprising? Not if you peel back the fact that Danault hounded the NHL's regular-season goals leader, Matthews (41G in 52 games), throughout the series. Danault stuck to Matthews, helping in large part to hold him to one goal in the series. Danault's work also resulted in passes to Matthews' linemate Zach Hyman (15G in 43 regular season games). One example: Hyman recorded six shots on goal Monday compared to three for Matthews, who, by the way, played an ironman 24-plus minutes in Game 7.
The other standout player if you dig deeper is rookie Cole Caufield. He didn't even dress for the first two games of the series after debuting with one goal (an overtime winner) and four assists in 10 games during the regular season following a call-up from the American Hockey League.
Caufield was an active offensive player in the last five games and anticipated to be a top scorer for seasons ahead.. But his highlight moment came in Game 5 overtime on a defensive move when he stole a Toronto pass at his own blueline, then streaked up ice with Nick Suzuki to his left, both flying on a 2-on-zero offensive rush. Caufield passed to Suzuki at the Leafs blue, then Suzuki passed back to Caufield.

The 20-year-old, 5-foot-7 Caufield thought like a veteran and passed right back to Suzuki for a tap-in past a bedazzled Jack Campbell, who could not be blamed.
Monday night, Caufield made a slick deke past a Toronto defender behind the Leafs goal line during the second period, drawing a holding penalty that led to a powerplay and two-goal lead for Montreal it never relinquished.

Noticing the Random

As fans follow second-round action, there will no doubt be random bounces that decide the outcome of a game-or at least send a game to overtime. There were two-such examples in Monday's games.
In a now deadlocked East Division series (1-1 in games) between Boston and the New York Islanders, Boston's Charlie Coyle opened the scoring in the first period. On a NYI powerplay six-plus minutes into the second period, forward Josh Bailey, deep in the Boston defensive zone, attempted a pass through a jam-up of players. It didn't look promising.

The pass didn't connect with a teammate but instead, and even better for NYI, it changed direction after hitting a Bruins defender skate blade, leaving postseason stalwart goalie Tuukka Rask unaware the puck was sliding his way before it was too late. Random but successful.
In the Montreal-Toronto game, Corey Perry was awarded with the goal when a Nick Suzuki shot deflected off Perry's leg and past Jack Campbell's glove hand. Campbell had just stopped a Montreal flurry and looked on track to stop Suzuki's shot. Random bounce strikes again.
Former Toronto coach and Red Wings Cup-winning coach Mike Babcock (wondering what he was thinking Monday night) says the right offensive system can take advantage of such randomness. For instance, a forward skating his assigned lane on an offensive rush can be in position to pick up a stray puck on a busted play.
Babcock himself encouraged his players to shoot toward opposing defenders on powerplays when there was not necessarily a clear pathway to the net. Those shots might just deflect off a skate, leg or any other body part.

Games to Watch This Week (Besides All)

Wednesday: The Vegas-Colorado showdown picks up with Game 2 after a 7-1 Avalanche blowout Sunday night. Expect VGK goalie Marc-Andre Fleury to take the net back from Robin Lehner. Fleury will have to look out for Colorado F Nathan MacKinnon (2G, 1A in Game 1) and D Cale Makar (1G, 3A).
Thursday: The NYI-BOS series moves to Long Island with a tied series. Boston's consistency over the past decade of playoffs, including a Cup win in 2011, is impressive-almost as much as watching Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak wreak havoc on whichever NYI goalie gets the start Thursday. Don't underestimate Tuukka Rask's goaltending for Boston or Barry Trotz' coaching for NYI.