When BJ's throw a 2-3 man aggressive forecheck then tire them out .. D to D and high and hard up da glass ... rinse and repeat ... once in a while we will catch them for a 3 on 2 or a 2 on 1 ... but I don't think they will do it often ... i think we have a much more difficult time with an aggressive neutral zone trap ... and again we need to switch things up on them and turn and Euro a few times and dump in a few times and maybe go 3 guys on one side of ice and bull rush a few times
Anticipating what Columbus will do against us and knowing our teams weakness its easier to predict what they will do, and playing to break up Leafs rush attack, neutralizing our speed attack seems fairly predicatble.
It would be much more difficult to design systems for the Leafs because you can't control how the opposition defends you. Its more about schemes to defend against the trap and an aggressive forecheck trying to catch them out of position, and create odd man attacks. However generally we're likely going to expect more dump and chase strategies when time and space is taken away from our Leafs and that will force Leafs to be more willing to take hits and to win puck battles.
However trap systems when executed effectively really nullify the skill of the opposition when you turn them it into a low scoring, tight checking, hard hitting affairs, and you have all 5 defender collapsing down low in their own zone in front of their goalie and boxing the opposition out of the slot and keeping them outside the face off dots on the perimeter.
This is not a new concept that face our Leafs as this has been done for decades.. The Jacques Lemaire led New Jersey Devils popularized the system in the mid to late '90s after they swept the high powered offensively skilled Detroit Red Wings in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals, trapping the more talented team into oblivion. The 1995-96 Red Wings put up 62 wins and that was similar to the TB last year tying that wins record... Torts simply took an already successful defensive game plan and modified it to his own team today and the swept the Lightning with the same strategy.
Leafs winning the series might all come down to how effective they can be on the PP, and using their stacked 1st unit to generate the offense that is needed to make the difference in a short series. Teams can't trap a PP and skilled players excel when they have more time and space to operate. We've seen Boston use this against us in the past where 5v5 is played at even, so hopefully we can exploit Columbus this same way and specialty teams are the reason for our Leafs advancing to the playoffs.