The Leafs are the early 2000 Sens. They don't have heart.
Their top 6 is buttery soft and yet...so is their bottom 6. Engvall, Mikeyev, Galchenyuk are wasted roster spots.
If I were GM I'd replace those 3 with an actual physical 4th line that can play and it would be huge.
Id also get rid of all those old guys who are done. And I'd move Nylander for a top 4 dman that can QB a pp but is capable enough that they aren't a liability defensively.
Not easy to do but can be done.
Not even close to the same situation really. Lack of "heart" was not the reason the Senators did not have success in the early 2000's.
In 99-2000, they were the 6th team in the East, facing the Leafs who were 3rd in the East; Leafs won in 6 games.
2000-2001, you could argue was an upset since the Senators were 2nd that year and the Leafs were 7th, we got swept, probably the most embarrassing playoffs in franchise history.
2001-2002, Beat the 2nd seeded Flyers in the 1st round that year as the 7th seeded team. Already more successful than the current Leafs squad, we lost in 7 games in round 2 to a higher ranked Leafs team that year too (4th).
2002-2003, Made it all the way to the Eastern conference finals and lost in game 7 with minutes left. That game could have gone either way.
2003-2004, Again, we were not the favourites going in as the Leafs were 4th and we were 5th seed. It was a close series all the way to game 7 and Lalime blew it for us. Nothing you can do about it. Goal scoring was an issue though in that series, we were shutout 3 times.
My point being is that Senators era team has a bit of an unfair "choker" label when in reality the only series they ever choked was in 2001 when we got swept as the 2nd best team in the east. Every other loss during that time we got beat by a higher ranked team, aside from the Devils in 2003 but they were the 2nd best team.
