When it comes to capitalizing against Leafs, Bruins are ready to keep a low profile

Bruce Cassidy wasn’t exactly breaking new ground when elaborating on Boston’s gameplan for capitalizing in the Maple Leafs’ zone over the next two weeks.

Need to generate quality looks against Frederik Andersen? Bring the puck right to his doorstep. Of course, that’s easier said than done when you’ve got a couple of hockey players clogging up the slot in front of you (and more than willing to lay you out along the way), but Cassidy and his players have a slew of options that they can turn to in order to open some space and generate Grade-A looks in front.

Every team is different when it comes to how it structures its defense in front of its netminder, but the Bruins plan on keeping things simple — a luxury when you have a forecheck that has consistently hemmed in the Leafs over the last couple of years, regardless of how many skaters Boston sends in below the faceoff dots.



“We’re looking to use the slot,” Cassidy said. “That’s our first option. Different teams do different things. Some teams are man on man the whole time, so usually a guy like Brad Marchand — Hey, Marchy, hang on to it and separate. He’s pretty good at creating time and space for himself. The (David Pastrnaks) of the world. Other guys need to run a little interference. They’re not as quick to get away, so let’s run some interference, make ‘em make decisions.

“Other teams flood the puck. Tampa, low, big D — let’s change sides in a hurry to try to get out to other sides and see if we can find the slot play. It depends a little on how each team defends their own end. But that’s always our first choice, to stay low. There are teams that collapse. Columbus, for example, they’re always in front of their net, so low-to-high becomes a better option and then you’ve got to create something there to stretch them back out. I think it will depend on Toronto decides to tee it up. We have a pretty good idea how they’re going to play. They’ve played that way all year. So for us, it’s looking to get pucks into the slot.”

It should come as no surprise that Boston’s strong scoring output against Toronto this season (16 goals over four games) have come due to Grade-A looks served up in front of both Andersen and Garret Sparks. Of those 16 tallies, nine have come from below the faceoff dots — while only one strike (Torey Krug’s first goal of the season back on Dec. 8) was generated by a shot outside of the slot or circles.

(The lone Bruins' goal scored against the Maple Leafs that came outside of the Grade-A area - courtesy of Torey Krug).



(Here's a look at all of the shot maps from Boston's four regular-season matchups against the Leafs. In a shocking revelation — a lot of these goals were generated in high-danger areas).



While Cassidy has stressed generating offense by way of low-to-high plays against clubs like the Blue Jackets and Lightning, expect Boston to rely heavily on puck-possession monsters like Marchand and David Krejci to keep the biscuit away from the Leafs and open up seams across the sheet.

As we’ve already stressed earlier this week, Boston’s forecheck is also going to be heavily relied upon this series — and for good reason, because Toronto really hasn’t had an answer for it so far this year.

Even though Boston has traditionally utilized a 2-1-2 forechecking scheme this season (in which two forwards are usually deployed below the faceoff dots, while the third forward (F3) remains up high as an extra layer in front of the defensemen, Boston has also more than held its own when it only sends in one forechecker.

As Stanley Cup of Chowder’s Shawn Ferris noted in a fantastic piece on Boston’s forechecking success against Toronto, Boston has only utilized a 1-2-2 scheme 29% of the time. However, during those sequences, the Leafs have only controlled 12.5% of their exits. Pretty impressive, considering that Toronto controls 22.0% of their exits when Boston deploys two forecheckers.

The case could be made that the Bruins might use a 1-2-2 forechecking strategy more often against this Leafs team — especially with another high forward giving Boston an extra layer to defend against a counter-rush from the Leafs.

“We’re not going to shadow him, by any means,” Cassidy said of the strategy when it comes to accounting for Leafs skaters like Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and John Tavares. “We’re not going to get out of our structure, but I do believe, we always talk about our third forward is really important in our forecheck and our decision making coming back into our end so our D can get good gaps.

“It becomes an even bigger focus for us to make sure — whoever our high forward is — is making good reads, not giving himself up, not diving down, whatever term you want to use. So that a minimum we have three guys back to be able to handle (Matthews).”

Of course, when you have playmakers up on the blueliner like Torey Krug, Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk, all options will be on the table for Boston when it comes to finding ways to find soft spots in Toronto’s defense. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — and Boston’s forecheck is going to generate plenty of chances down low over the next couple of weeks.