The Importance Placed on Playoff Experience is Misguided

The Maple Leafs current playoff series with the Washington Capitals has been billed as a David vs Goliath match-up by both the fans and the media, and understandable so. One team is a perennial President's Trophy winner and the other was safely nestled into last place in the league just one season ago. More specifically, the glaring disadvantage of the youthful Leafs roster lacking playoff experience was discussed frequently leading up to game 1.

When compared to a battle-hardened Capitals team that's been making the playoffs consistently since Ovechkin arrived in D.C., this is also true on the surface. The Leafs have seven rookies currently playing significant roles on the team, and it's difficult to gain playoff experience when your NHL career is still in its infancy.

However, through four games it's becoming increasingly more difficult to claim that the Leaf's lack of NHL playoff experience will be their downfall in this series. Even if they are eventually eliminated by Washington, they've obviously shown they can compete with a top NHL team. They've done this while rarely looking nervous, something many expected them to be considering the sheer number of rookies and young players unfamiliar with the intensity of the NHL post season.

It's objectively been the closest series in the playoffs.

• The series is tied 2-2
• Every game has been separated by only one goal, including three overtimes.
• Starting goaltenders Braden Holtby and Frederik Andersen have nearly identical save percentages at .907 and .905 respectively.
• The Leafs have 150 shots on goal, while the Capitals only have three less at 147.

If the Leafs don't make it to the second round, it will ultimately be because Washington is a better team, not because they lacked the experience required to win these monumental games.

I think this can be attributed to more than just the Leafs being a highly skilled team consisting of rookie phenoms that are playing pressure-free hockey. They weren't even expected to make the playoffs therefore they have nothing to lose, right? While that's certainly a factor, I think that these players are more experienced than many give them credit for.

Elite players such as Matthews, Nylander, and Marner are no stranger to playing in important games. They've also been depended on their entire lives to perform in those big games. Whether they be junior league playoffs, or elimination games in international tournaments, at one point, those games WERE their NHL playoffs. They were the absolute height of big game atmosphere and competitive play at the time.

These types of players inevitably perform in these scenarios, because it's what they've always done. They would've tried to raise their game to the highest level possible then, and there's no reason for them not to do it now.

The leagues may have changed, but they're still counted on to play to the best of their ability.

Babcock himself even supported this sentiment during a post game interview on April 1st, after the Leafs defeated The Red Wings 5-4. He was asked about the rookie's consistent play throughout the season.

"I think they've been difference makers their whole life so they don't understand anything different, so that's what they try to do"

You can watch the full interview

Babcock is right though. These players have felt pressure to perform when they were 9, when they were 16, and now as they enter their 20s. They've always produced when it matters, they wouldn't have been drafted where they were otherwise.

It's an overlooked benefit of drafting players with elite skill sets. Being game breakers comes naturally to them at this point.

One may argue the pressure to perform, physical toll, and competition of the NHL playoffs are in a whole different stratosphere from other professional hockey games, and they'd probably be right. However, I think many players learn to adapt a lot quicker than we realize.

Nylander had played nearly 20 playoff games for the Marlies the last two seasons, where he was also counted on to be a premier offensive contributor for the team. Scoring 14 pts in 19 games as a teenager in a physical men's league.

Marner's phenomenal playoff performance with London Knights last year is well documented. Mitch put up 44 points in 18 games, winning the OHL Championship in the process. He followed that up with an absurd 14 points in 4 games to win the Memorial Cup. Not quite the NHL playoffs perhaps, but undoubtedly the most important games Marner had ever played at that point.

Matthews represented his country and continent in both the World Championships and World Cup of Hockey in 2016, rarely looking out of place among more matured players.

I'm not saying playoff experience isn't valuable, I'm sure it can be. I can see how having veterans in the locker room who have undergone the ups and downs and bumps and bruises of an NHL post season could potentially be beneficial for those who haven't. It's just too commonly used as lazy reasoning for when a younger team is simply outmatched.

Besides, three of the top 100 players of all time were just swept. Experience is overrated.