The Lightning have what the Maple Leafs want. It might just be a matter of time

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This article was published 04/07/2021 (1867 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MONTREAL—They faced a series of annual playoff disappointments. They had a managerial change in 2018. They wear blue and white, too.

They are the Tampa Bay Lightning, now a win away from back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.

“Now it becomes, like, a legacy thing,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “You talk about some of the great teams in a decade span and you hope the Tampa Bay Lightning would be mentioned in that. You sit back and say: Look what Chicago did, they won three (titles) in six years. And look what L.A. did, and look what Pittsburgh (did). Multiple Cups — it’s street cred for the guys, for the organization.”

About 800 kilometres down the road from Game 4, Leaf Nation perhaps revels in the possibility that the Montreal Canadiens could be humiliated on home ice Monday night, swept while watching the other team raise the silver chalice.

But there are bigger lessons to be learned as Maple Leafs fans continue to navel-gaze about what might have been, fret about salary structure and question whether the team has what it takes to do what Tampa is doing.

It starts at the top.

Yes, the Lightning are an offence-minded team that learned to play defence, a collection of stars who learned to sacrifice for the greater good as they got older. But it was the management group that stuck to its guns despite the humiliation of being swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the opening round of the 2019 playoffs after winning the Presidents’ Trophy, on top of previous post-season letdowns.

“Those experiences are part of our baggage,” general manager Julien BriseBois said. “We can draw on those experiences to prepare for our games. We can adjust along the way. They made us better. To be honest, I would have preferred winning the Cup in 2014 and not losing in four in 2019. But those challenges made us better.”

BriseBois — who replaced Steve Yzerman, the team’s architect, in 2018 — simply stuck with the vision. He added key pieces such as Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow, but the core remained in tact. And the commitment paid off.

“It’s a journey, right?” said Cooper. “I’m sure that there were a couple of teams out there that went right into winning, but I can’t think of any of them off the top of my head. You’ve got to remember, only one team can win, so there’s a lot of teams in there that get gut-punched. When you look back, often times when you don’t win you look at the moments of why you didn’t.”

Leafs fans and critics of the team are dwelling on the negative: salary structure and the inability of the stars to produce over the final three games against Montreal in the opening round. Leafs GM Kyle Dubas, who replaced Lou Lamoriello in 2018, appears to be taking a page out of BriseBois’s playbook: sticking with it.

By re-signing Wayne Simmonds and Jason Spezza, and signalling they’re open to talks with pending free agents Frederik Andersen and Zach Hyman, Dubas is showing faith in everything that has taken them this far. Of course, five opening-round playoff losses in a row is not far enough, but Dubas isn’t taking advice from his naysayers. Significant change doesn’t appear to be in the cards.

Similarities between the Leafs and Lightning include:

• Heavy investment in player and staff development at the minor-league level. Both Cooper and Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe were “called up” from the minors after winning the Calder Cup.

• Salary-cap creativity, including using the long-term injured reserve to maximum advantage.

Significant differences:

• Draft philosophy. The Leafs have valued offence over defence.

• Size on the blue line. The Lightning defence is two inches taller and 20 pounds heavier on average. Leaf Morgan Rielly is six-foot-one, 219 pounds. The Lightning’s Victor Hedman is six-foot-six, 241 pounds.

• In net. With apologies to Jack Campbell and Andersen, no Leafs goalie compares to Andrei Vasilevskiy.

• Age. Most of Tampa’s best players are in their late 20s or older. The Leafs’ core skews younger with Auston Matthews (22), Mitch Marner (23), William Nylander (24) and Rielly (26).

With age comes experience. This is how Cooper described the growth of Kucherov, now 28 and leading all playoff scorers with 32 points in 21 games.

“I don’t know if you can sit here and say it’s like a match-striking moment. It takes time. The switch getting flipped. It’s gradual. Can you sit there and say what happened to us in 2019 and what happened to him specifically? It probably opened his eyes a little bit.

“At times you may not get as many points or whatever it is that you’re used to — it may be scaled back a little bit — but your trophy case is going to get bigger and it takes time for gifted, skilled players to sometimes learn that. There’s a reason they’re special and I think the special ones can adapt, and that’s what Kuch has done. It took him some time in the league but, boy, has he turned into a remarkable player and that’s all Kuch.”

Dubas has to hope that one day Keefe will be saying the same things about Matthews and Marner.

Kevin McGran is a Star sports reporter based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @kevin_mcgran