What do the Toronto Maple Leafs need to do to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning?

It’s been another successful regular season for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and while they finished four points shy of last season’s record, it still feels like this is a much-improved Leafs roster. But none of that matters, as the playoffs will always be the main talking point of this team until they finally make it past the first round.

There’s no doubt this team has the skill to do it, but at this point it almost seems like it’s a mental obstacle for the group to exorcise their demons. Jay Rosehill joined Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna on Daily Faceoff Live to talk about what the Leafs need to overcome this hurdle and beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round.

Jay Rosehill: I think it’s just a well-rounded confidence within the group that they’ve been lacking in the past. You watch them last year, and they come out to win 5-0 against Tampa, and you know they’re an immature group that isn’t very well-rounded, and it goes to their head. And as soon as they face some adversity after that, you can see it, it’s palpable on the ice, they’re looking at each other like “who’s going to do this” and they’re panicking and they’re gripping their sticks.

Now I think with their goaltending I believe is in as good a place as it’s ever been, even without Murray in their net, I’m okay with that, the leadership qualities of Ryan O’Reilly just takes them over the top, and then they’ve got some grit, they’ve got some jam, I just think that they’re more well-rounded and more mature, they’ve got that experience of the past behind them, the players that were part of it, and I think they’re ready to actually put the foot on the throttle and get through the first round. I think everything they’ve showed this year has shown that I think it’s a more successful year than last year regardless of them being a couple points shy, I believe they’re a better team.

Frank Seravalli: Yeah, there’s no doubt that this group has what it takes to exorcise those demons. We’ll see if they can actually do that.

You can watch the full episode here…