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Watched the entire series and it seemed to me that the Lightning outplayed us in all the games except game 2. I know we won and all, but all the other wins felt like we stole them and you just wanted to take a breath of relief once it was over like you got away with one.

Just goes to show you how important NHL playoff experience really is. The difference for us was Lightning had 1669 playoff games under their roster, vs Leafs who had 606 (before the series started). Almost 3 to 1, (2.754125).

They also had 8 guys with over 100 playoff games experience, including their goalie!



The Leafs on the other hand had only 3 guys with more than 50 game experience.



With Ilya Samsonov having 8 games playoff experience (before series with Tampa Bay).


When we met Tampa Bay Lightning their average playoff experience divided by their roster was:

Tampa Bay Lightining 75.86 poG/p.
Toronto Maple Leafs 28.86 poG/p.

After the series our playoff exp averaged jumped by almost 6 full games per player.

Toronto Maple Leafs 34.24 poG/p.

Here is how Boston and Florida look playoff Experience wise:

Boston 60.65 poG/p. (Weakness Goalies: Linus Ulmark 8(6), Jeremy Swayman 7(1), in parenthesis playoff games played this year)
Florida 29.34 poG/p. (Goalies: Sergei Bobrovsky 55(6), Alex Lyon 3(3))

So Florida would be nice to face, but their Goalie has almost double the rosters experience. Boston on the other hand is loaded with an experienced squad, but their goaltending is very very inexperienced playoff wise.


Download Excel File with all teams and playoff experience and calculations.

How much experience does Florida and Vegas, and Dallas, and Carolina have?

Playoff experience helps but we make too much of it. You're best players have to play their best and want it, it's pretty simple. If you're top guys don't perform when it matters, you're not going to advance. But if they do, whether it's their first appearance of 15th, you'll go far. That's been the Leafs downfall.

For all the fair criticism the Leafs take every playoff;
Perhaps I am just old school but we don't really blame goaltending.

The Leafs in previous years have had good goaltending, but not great goaltending.
A great goalie will steal you a series you don't deserve to win and we have watched the Leafs be the victim of that very theory.

If the plan is to keep the core together its time to address the net with an actual elite solution if possible.