Fire Wagon Hockey, why it won't work.
An entire season of exciting hockey, sounds great doesn't it? it is, but it doesn't get a team very far, all you need to do is ask the Washington Capitals of 3 years ago to find out why it won't work, they eventually had to change their strategy losing early in the playoffs that season.
The Leafs have employed this strategy the entire season so far, and the results are to be expected, around .550 hockey with some very entertaining games thrown into the mix, the last two games with Edmonton are a perfect example.
The Problem is, that is Edmonton, a basement dwelling team that has yet to master the art of defending with a young team hell bent on offence at all costs. Toronto is running into difficulty as the season winds down as teams "clam up" in the neutral zone and block their speed from gaining easy access to the opposing zone, see the Montreal game for a perfect example.
The strategy simply allows too many scoring chances and odd man rushes against to be successful, Toronto scores goals with anyone in the league (176, ranked 8th), but they also give up the same amount or more (174, ranked 26th) as they have recently, often leaving the goaltending tandem of Reimer and Gustavsson out in the cold (both have .906 Save Percentage, 53/54 rank), which is why they are near the bottom of the league in team save percentage.
Toronto has a fairly large defense corps, one would think it would make more sense to slow the game down slightly and allow your not so fleet footed defence more time to position themselves.
The bottom line? it doesn't win hockey games when it matters, and it matters now.
