LEAF TAKEAWAYS: Circling the wagons will help Leafs on playoff trail

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If the defense wins the championship, even a round of playoffs – consider the true blue believer of Maple Leaf.

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When Craig Berube moved behind the bench, his mission was to make Toronto more difficult against 200 feet, not just the Blue offense, not just the Blue offense.

On the cusp of the Atlantic Division Champions, there is a need to hold a score in Buffalo, after Sunday’s 4-1 season at Carolina, Leaf has won the most impressive victory of the most impressive holding fortress: one in the last eight games and only 12 in the last eight games.

Their goalkeeper tandem is the best in years, but it’s also about shooting, the puck defender, six strikers at the bottom, they’re furious and the scorer makes a double effort.

Where Sheldon Keefe’s team is heading in this direction, Berube’s Leaf can only play in two regular season games.

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“It’s big, it’s not a lot of things we’ve done in the past,” Morgan Rielly told reporters in Raleigh on Sunday. “But if you look at the recent games, they’re all close. It’s a great opportunity for our guys to feel comfortable (under playoff pressure)

“It can be disturbing. But the more you execute, the more you rely on the structure, the more you push up.”

Last year’s team lost the last four regular season games as a prelude to Boston 3-1 (albeit injured) in its series. This version was absent for most of the season.

Now, the 50-win 100-point activity becomes the wrong end of the first round handshake line. The reward for this regular arrangement towing should be their first Atlantic division title ever and is any of the 25 years.

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Get a defender

Sunday brought 16 back-to-back situations to Toronto, which made the playoffs not worry.

The leaves in the second game are 5-0-1 and 10-4-2 overall since the New Year. The recent double drop beat Montreal 1-0 in the field victory, using only five defensemen before flying to Tobacco Road, playing with one of the NHL’s best home teams less than 24 hours later.

“I’m proud of their response this year,” Beruber said. “The guys did a great job, performed well, played the right way, defended and not opened up too much.”

Rielly can see the gradual change of the confrontation in 4 countries as all 32 teams revolve around a two-week break calendar, it doesn’t matter to the stars who haven’t interrupted when they compete.

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“At the end of January, the schedule was a bit daunting,” Rielley said. “The guys did a great job, don’t complain too much. Our training staff was great.”

The game starts

Joseph Woll and Leafs were besieged in the first phase of Sunday until one of Berube’s experimental lines turned around.

Pontus Holmberg, who had a penalty in at least 20 of his scoring drought, performed well between Bobby McMann and Nick Robertson, slammed the fat rebound from Rielly on that former Freddy Andersen.

From there, William Nylander and John Tavares – on the main setup of their new left Max Domi, and Auston Matthews from scoring support for Woll. Meanwhile with his defense, Wall almost killed Chris Tanev’s Double Miss, and then Sebastian Aho scored on 27 shots.

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If Wall had to play against the Ottawa Senator or the seven-game winning streak in Game 1 against Anthony Stolarz, the Florida Panthers, he could easily spin, which was like the Toronto team’s playoffs, which often made it difficult to stay first goalkeeper in the driver’s seat.

blade

While political tensions may limit Leaf fans across the border to watch the game in Buffalo, they can see two important personal milestones. Matthews is sitting at 399 career goals, Mitch Marner at 99 points … Tavares had an excellent 19 points in the second game of back-to-backs through the season … Defenceman Dakota Mermis played more than 15 minutes on Sunday as an emergency recall while the Leafs await updates on Jake McCabe and Oliver Ekman-Larsson … D-man Simon Benoit, who saw 51/2 minutes of short-handed duty, also reached 200 hits of the season… Farm Racing team cavalry is on the wire trying to win a playoff spot. They were 6 points on four teams after losing a 6-5 shootout in Cleveland on Sunday. Winter Alex Steeves played 3-pointer while goalkeeper Dennis Hildeby fell 1-3 in the gunfight.

lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby

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