The Battle of Ontario is essentially the sum of many smaller conflicts, and the Toronto Maple Leafs won all of them comprehensively, stomping the Ottawa Senators with a 6-2 victory that doubled as a declaration of intent.
Toronto entered Game 1 with a revamped defence corps, a new identity under head coach Craig Berube and it’s clear that despite the easy narrative, this wasn’t the same club from the previous failures of the past decade. Ottawa completely unraveled like many young, ambitious and undisciplined teams often do, with the bright lights and attention of the postseason proving to be an overwhelming glare.
Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube won his individual battle against Senators head coach Travis Green throughout the night. Berube made smart adjustments, namely moving a turnover-prone Max Domi down to the third line, and took an opportune timeout during the second period, when the Leafs gained a 5-on-3 opportunity. Toronto evidently drew up an ATO for William Nylander, who received the puck from John Tavares off the faceoff, beating beleaguered Senators goalie Linus Ullmark cleanly for a 4-1 lead.
After the game, Berube was all smiles and was proud of his team’s efforts, while Green was on the defensive, defending Ullmark after a poor start, while implying the Maple Leafs benefited from a favourable whistle.
“It’s going to be physical. I thought we did a good job of controlling our emotions and playing through it. You have to. Like I said, it’s going to be a battle, and it was,” Berube said post-game.
“I thought there were a couple calls they did a good job selling,” Green mused at the podium.
Advantage, Berube.
Discipline is a battle, and the Senators came completely unglued, trying to run John Tavares, Matthew Knies among other Leafs throughout the contest. It led to several penalties, and the Maple Leafs clearly won the power play battle, scoring three times on six chances. Toronto connected at a 30.8 percent clip with the man advantage since February 1, and it absolutely scorched a seemingly overmatched Ottawa penalty kill.
Ottawa went 0-for-2 on the power play, while Simon Benoit, Brandon Carlo, Scott Laughton and company were outstanding on the penalty kill for Toronto. Tim Stutzle boarded John Tavares, and Tavares scored nine seconds into the power play to give the Leafs a 3-1 lead. Adam Gaudette cross-checked Auston Matthews, Toronto’s captain laughed it off, and Nylander scored from the ATO. It was 4-1 Toronto, and the game was effectively over, winning the discipline, special teams and coaching matchups rather easily.
“Penalties are penalties. We’re disciplined, we’re gonna keep being disciplined,” Berube said. “ We’re gonna play hard between the whistles the right way and keep being physical, but we’re not gonna get involved in all the antics after the whistles or whatever. Refs call games, they call penalties for whatever reasons. I thought we checked well with our feet and our sticks tonight. We were hard on our net, doing things right to stay out of the box.”
Goaltending is often considered to be a battle, and Anthony Stolarz outplayed Linus Ullmark rather easily on Sunday. Stolarz made several excellent stops, particularly at the start of the second period, where he blanked Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, then responded moments later with another terrific save on Shane Pinto. Stolarz allowed a few lucrative rebounds, but he was excellent when he needed to be, recording 31 saves on 33 shots. Ullmark, the Vezina-winning goaltender, was lit up throughout the contest and a frothing Scotiabank Arena rang his name out throughout the building.
“I like our goaltending. I like our goalie a lot. He’s won a Vezina. Pretty good,” Green said post-game.
You don’t need to break out the advanced stats charts during a thorough victory for the Maple Leafs, but Ullmark saved -2.6 goals above expected in all situations. Stolarz, for what it’s worth, saved 1.47 goals above expected in all situations. Advantage, Stolarz.
Toronto won the turnover battle, the shot blocks battle, best exemplified by Matthew Knies getting in front of a Thomas Chabot cannon, then scoring on the next shift. It won the face-off battle as well. One battle after another, if you will, and it won the response battle, too. Morgan Rielly was perhaps the lone Maple Leafs player struggling through the first two periods, but he responded with a clever wrist shot from the point, to restore a three-goal lead, 45 seconds after Senators forward and antagonist Ridly Greig cut the lead to 4-2.
Sunday marked 21 years to the date of the last postseason contest in the Battle of Ontario, where Joe Nieuwendyk lit up Patrick Lalime en route to a 4-1 victory in Game 7 of their first-round series. There’s no real correlation, other than to say that the Maple Leafs reign supreme over their provincial rival in the postseason and a more talented, experienced side cruised to a blowout victory in Game 1, winning in every aspect imaginable.
“It was intense. It was a battle, it’s called Battle of Ontario for a reason,” Tavares said post-game. “It was a hard-fought game, obviously a lot of good things we did to put ourselves in a good spot to get the result we want, but we know we can be a lot better. As the series develops, we’ll have to continue to improve our game and execute, and look at the things we did well.”
It’s just one game of course, but in winning one battle after another, the Maple Leafs appear poised to win the war.
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