NHL teams, especially the rich ones such as the Toronto Maple Leafs, spend millions on skills coaches, personal cooks, trainers, and more. However, one area that doesn’t get enough support is mental skills. I sat down with Neural-Optimization Consultant Karlyn Fischer to discuss why the Leafs have been unable to win a playoff series for 18 years. And now, with the familiar view of them leading a series 3 games to 1, perhaps they have finally turned a corner. But how? Karlyn put her impressive skills to work and prepared the article you will read below. It goes in-depth on what has ailed Toronto, and what they can do to finally “break the curse”.

Playoff Curse: Overlooked Neuroscience Edge for Upcoming Games

By Karlyn Fischer

The Lightning may face unfavorable odds in the upcoming games against the Leafs’, but a deeper analysis of the teams’ mental states reveals a potential edge that is overlooked. By understanding the principles of neuroplasticity and how the mind functions, the outcome of this series could be influenced. The Leafs are very familiar with being the first team to secure three wins in a series, but their challenge lies in maintaining their mental composure. Matthews stressed the importance of Game 4, the win they cannot seem to clinch. Right now they are on track with their old selves, they have proven themselves as a new team just yet. The cliche “here we go again” trending, especially after the upset they faced with the Canadiens.  Everyone wondered what went wrong in the past. Simple: they were neurologically conditioned to lose, unintentionally, of course.

The Leafs have proven their physical skills, but things took a mental turn in the past whenever they had a chance to end the series. This infamous playoff curse has left them unable to advance to the second round. The question remains: have they taken steps to rewire their minds and overcome this hurdle? The Canadiens watching asking themselves, is this a repeat of two years ago?  This is a crucial aspect to consider for teams looking to rebuild and enhance their performance.

Leafs’ Mental Pre-Series Conditioning

When teams lose enough times, they have trouble finding their “mental” flow state. Announcers comment: “this team isn’t settled in, their jittery, their nervous, and they’re not confident.” Translation: they’re in their fight or flight state. They initiated their mental panic button and flipped a switch. The simplest way to look at your mind and break down big concepts like neuroplasticity and nervous system regulation is to understand that your mind works like a system, just as a defensive system is created in hockey with forwards, defensemen, and the goalie.

If you drink the sports Kool-Aid, you’ll look at confidence, intensity, toughness, mental health and basic sports psychology, and you won’t be able to see the big picture. You are either wired to win or wired to lose. Teams that repeatedly lose every year, even to lower-calibre opponents, unintentionally reinforce a losing mental wiring.

Neuroscience translation:

Your mind consists of 100 billion neurons that form networks, structurally shaping your mind like clay. Imagine you have a skyful of stars waiting to be mapped within your mind. These networks create thought paths, similar to how constellations connect together. “What you focus on grows” The unfortunate thing is teams grow the mental paths of losing and keep accumulating them until that is the easiest thing to do, no matter their physical ability.

It’s like ruts in the mud. If you can imagine that image when you lose repeatedly, you’re actually structurally changing your brain to follow those grooves/paths in the mud. Over time your mind tells your body, through your hormone cycle, to create the same emotions. Your body likes to be in the exact same emotional state (homeostasis). So essentially, what happens is the team gets addicted to losing, and they get tough enough to keep losing.

A quote from the Leafs after last year’s playoff loss shows their dissatisfaction with the cycle of losing.

“We’re sick and tired of feeling this way.”

What they are really saying is we are addicted to the emotional scripts from losing. The emotions themselves become irrelevant because they are programmed into the team, like a computer code. Essentially, the Leafs have become conditioned to losing over time, to the point where their brains have formed neural pathways that prioritize losing over winning. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where the team’s emotions and behaviour are already predetermined before the game even starts; even when they have a chance to win, their past experiences of losing cause them to give up or leads them to defeat.

In last year’s game seven series, they were down by a goal, there was time on the clock, but it seemed like they had inadvertently given up because it seemed so familiar to the year before. The fans stop cheering, and it became the big entourage of “here we go again.” Not exactly the underdog mental engineering they are looking for. However, by understanding how to reset their stress response and actively building the pathways of winning, the Leafs can rewire their brains until it’s the easiest mental path to choose, letting their physical talent speak for itself.

Leaf’s Mental Lineup Diagram:

Looking at the Leafs’ lineup diagram, you can see that the green boxes represent the players who have been a part of the Leafs’ franchise for 5+ years. They have built mental paths and emotions for 5+ years to lose in the first round. Some of the most crucial players to watch are in red and black; players like O’Reilly represent players that have won the cup and, essentially, they’ve mentally gotten by the first round before.

Lightning Wiring and Lineup Diagram:

If you look at the Lightning lineup, based on the diagram, you’ll see the players in the red boxes and the white boxes. They have a total of 10 players who’ve already won the Stanley Cup. Their entire team has the mental pathways to get by the first round, except for the three new players represented in the black boxes. That is the mental norm they’re fighting with over the next couple of games.

Neuroscience Translation:

The Lightning players have already experienced winning and have built mental pathways and emotions associated with success, it becomes easier for them to choose the mental path to win. Their past success has programmed their minds, and they are more likely to perform well under pressure.

Mental-Match up

Looking at the green and the red boxes in both diagrams. The difference between the Leafs’ and the Lightning is that the Lightning can let their veteran players lead emotionally. In the past, they’ve been engineered to find a way to win mentally and show up physically. The Leafs’ veteran players have emotional scripts from the past, to find a way to lose mentally and find a way to match their skill level to that physically.

The work the team has done behind the scenes is a mystery to us. We don’t know what we don’t know.  Based on past conditioning, this programming contributed to their shortcomings. The Leafs’ coach stated that he doesn’t believe last year’s performance will contribute to this year’s season. We will have to sit back and see if their efforts are enough to win the series.

Neuroscience translation:

Your mind will discard old mental pathways (neural networks) if they aren’t being used. Structurally alternating your brain to be re-wired in the other direction (to win). However, if the old mental paths are still there from past years, you’ll use them. Causing Internal conflict during a game. You can’t deny the Leafs’ impressive physical talent, but hopefully, they don’t get blindsided by their past programming when the real mental pressure starts.

Mental Line Match-up Strategy- Physical skills aside

Lightning

• Superstars/veterans are conditioned to find a mental path to win.
• Nervous system set to emotions associated with winning.
•  Their new players are the most vulnerable to making mental mistakes.

Leafs’

• Superstars/veterans are conditioned to find a mental path to lose. (Have the lessons from past losses)
• Nervous system set to emotions associated with losing.
• Their new players need to mentally regulate the entire team.

Each team has a different mental conditioning from the players who log the most ice time. Giving the Lightning the ultimate mental advantage. If the Lightning can play with the Leafs’ top six emotionally, they can cause them to spiral into a losing mental path, ultimately leading to defeat. Sounds like a job for Perry if he can keep up with their speed.

On the other hand, the Maple Leafs can save their series if they understand that their past conditioning may be affecting their performance. They must work to override their emotional scripts, including the cliche “don’t choke” mindset. The most crucial concept to understand is that this won’t necessarily feel natural. Based on the misconception of our modern society, you’d think they’d just “feel good,” but they have to internally spend mental energy forming pathways “to not choke,” which might cause slight anxiety as their mind embarks into unknown territory.

Based on the Leafs’ diagram, the players in black and red blocks, like O’Reilly, are essential to the next couple of games. They don’t have any preconceived franchise notions; they’ve never encountered the emotions of a Leafs’ loss. Their physical skills are essential because if they give the veterans hope, it will change the mental momentum of the veterans, strengthening their physical skills. The lettered players influence and cause a ripple effect on the entire team.

On the other hand, it will be interesting to see how the Lightning will match up defensively against these key Leaf players. Coaches may need to strategize how they want their lines to contribute to huge momentum shifts:

While one play does not determine the outcome of a game, it can have a significant impact on the momentum of the teams. After a particular play, one team may find the mental pathways (their conditioned wiring) to either win or lose, leading to a shift in momentum. Most teams fail to mentally defend this and reverse the momentum shift. Let’s say your team lets one bad play or one bad penalty impact the rest of the game. You are most likely a victim of either circumstance.

1. You don’t play mental defence, you have a low tolerance level, and you set your margin of error to be very high because of your mental conditioning.
2. If you let your team blow a game after one simple play, then you better study the mental aspect of your team because you probably didn’t have a physical chance to begin with.

If the Leafs’ meet the same fate this season, it might be time to start investing in mental re-wiring outside the box. No one wants to see this so-called “Infamous curse” escalate as it has for the city of Cleveland or the Red Sox. Every year they lose, they get emotionally tough enough to keep losing and remain haunted by this so-called curse.

Applying Neuroscience to Rebuilding Teams:

Understanding these concepts and these principles and applying them to rebuild your franchise is essential, especially for the Canadiens, the Coyotes and the Penguins. Imagine the edge it could add to a young team like the Sabres, who just missed the playoff cut by one point.

For new teams like the Kraken, mental wiring is particularly important because they have no playoff pre-existing memories, emotional scripts, or bad habits. Nothing has gone wrong. Everything they build from this point on will become their franchise standard. The Kraken can wire themselves for success and establish themselves as a competitive force in the league, much like the Golden Knights did.

As the mental health world evolves, you want to be certain your team is getting the right information to empower themselves. Your mental health depends on your mental system and which mental pathways you reinforce through repeated thoughts and actions.

Normalize: think about how they think, instead of dismissing them, “they are overthinking,” Former NFL Super Bowl Coach Tony Dungy did just that, he created a system leveraging the brain’s natural wiring to facilitate his entire team to execute complex plays flawlessly.

Creating hot winning streaks is an overlooked million-dollar industry. All teams want to do is win the games they are physically capable of. They want to minimize these long-losing streaks by playing mental defence against scrappy underdogs. Reverse the scenario, play mental offence and give themselves a chance for the games that they are clearly the underdog.

The sports industry is currently failing to recognize the mental Moneyball component behind every sport, as it primarily focuses on physical skills and on mental fluff. Imagine the team you could build and the momentum you’d create if you learned to use the mind’s natural wiring for you instead of against you. It’s time to revolutionize the sports industry.