Maple Leafs have plenty left to prove in playoffs. kristen_shilton has more:
TORONTO — The Maple Leafs have a lot to prove in the NHL’s upcoming postseason tournament, to the league at large and to themselves.“I firmly believe we need to continue to take steps with our defensive play, and the number one root cause of that is just our mindset of becoming an elite team that really values how we're performing defensively,” Dubas told reporters on a Zoom call from the Royal York Hotel on Monday.
It’s been a long road for the NHL to even arrive at the point of playing games again, from pausing the regular season in mid-March amid the COVID-19 pandemic to cobbling together a playoff tournament in hub cities. The Leafs showed their eagerness to resume early on though, boasting near-perfect attendance throughout Phase 2's voluntary workouts in June and early July.“The effort that players put into it [was huge], just with their focus on the ice,” Dubas said of Phase 2.
A take-charge attitude towards their own preparation is what’s still impressing Dubas about his group, and feeding his belief that Toronto is primed to better itself now and in the future. “The long-term is where I'm spending a lot of my downtime, thinking about where our team will be going,” he said. “And looking at various different free agents that might be available that are here playing, or even in the games that are going to be on from [the Western Conference Hub city in] Edmonton. I think this is a great chance to watch a lot of games of those players and really deeply study them before we get into what we hope will be a rapid succession of events [after playoffs].
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