It's time for the Leafs to stop waiting for help from the hockey gods and start making things happen on their own.
MONTREAL - The Toronto Maple Leafs have reached a critical point in the learning curve. That point where it becomes easy to say, "We're close every night. We're just not getting any breaks."
"Poor us."
Spend a Saturday around this group, and you certainly hear too much about the breaks they aren't getting. As if good luck is something that is owed to this last-place team. Or something they have earned.
But give some credit to Toronto head coach Ron Wilson who has seen this movie many times before over the years. He knows what happens if you let a team become satisfied with 'close but no cigar' every night.
"I could throw out all the clichés," said Wilson, after his team had scored twice in the final 3:28 to force OT before being quickly disposed of in a shootout by the Montreal Canadiens in a thrilling 5-4 loss. "We still have to find a way to win."
"What clichés do you want?" asked Wilson. "We never say die? Blah, blah blah… We've still got to find a way to win."
That is what this Leafs team needs to hear from their coach. Not, "Nice try, guys. We were close tonight."
So now the Leafs reach that point in their evolution where - over the next 10 days, with three of four games at home - we should be able to take the temperature of this group and learn something about them.
After losing a stretch of games in which they weren't even close, Toronto has competed hard for the past five games. They have a win and three OT losses to show for it.
The problem becomes when a team gets satisfied with those efforts. Satisfied with being close, and saying, "We played well enough to win."
We've been hearing that from the Maple Leafs for the past week, as they blew a late lead in Dallas, then scored in the last minute to force OT in Buffalo and Montreal.
But it was bad breaks that cost them a win in Montreal. We'll email Gary Bettman and ask if the league can mandate more mirrors in Toronto's dressing rooms on the road.
"It seems like teams have been getting breaks against us," said Tomas Kaberle, who was a lead author in the Leafs poor start, having taken a competitive holiday during the first two weeks of the season. "(Montreal) scored two goals off their bodies, standing on the (net) side. We'll get some breaks, and we'll get the two points."
Kaberle has found the level he is expected to play at, to be sure, and was very good Saturday. But I'd rather hear Kaberle talk about making some breaks, instead of standing around waiting them to fall out of the sky.
That is the mindset we'll be watching with this Leafs team, as the sting of a horrendous start numbs into the second month of the season - with one lone 'W' under the win column thus far.
Are they good enough to turn these close losses into wins? Are they mentally tough enough to avoid feeling sorry for themselves after a cheesy goal against?
Or do those goals become the crutch that allows a hockey team to shift the blame away from their own performance?
"Obviously we've gotten some bad breaks. Tonight, two pucks bouncing off of two guys before entering the net," Wilson said. Like Kaberle however, he noted that Toronto's tying goal caromed past Jaroslav Halak off the skate of Montreal defenceman Jaro Spacek.
It was a giant break.
"Fortunately we got a break of our own to score the fourth and tying goal. We haven' had any goals like that," Wilson said.
Then there was a freebie goal given up by Vesa Toskala. That's not bad luck. It's bad goaltending.
But let's allow that the poor Leafs haven't had their share of breaks this season. Just for conversation's sake.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time around sports can tell you why that is: because the Maple Leafs haven't played well enough to get breaks.
You make your breaks at this level, and it's no fluke that good team seem to get good luck, and bad ones don't.
Whining and begging doesn't change that, and that culture of entitlement - that the Maple Leafs are somehow owed an even shake by the hockey gods - is a culture that Wilson should fumigate out of his dressing room.
They need to make the next step forward, or a good past eight days will have been a waste for this hockey team.
"The next step is, don't get behind," Kaberle said. "Most of the game we get behind one, two goals. We have to be the team to be leading, don't get scored against, and win the game in 60 minutes."
It's called making your own breaks.