The Leafs showed a lack of character in their ugly loss to the lowly Panthers.
SUNRISE, FLA -- There was supposed to be desperation. And perhaps, a little perspiration.
But in the end, a few thousand Toronto Maple Leafs fans saved their sweats for Friday morning, after their boys left them feeling green on St. Patty's Day.
"As a team, it just wasn't good enough all around," said goaltender J.S. Giguere, who was qualified to make that assessment, as his play was as average as anyone else's Thursday night.
Crippling? Maddening? The onset of reality?
You can describe this 4-0 loss to the Florida Panthers any way you'd like, but it's certainly a killer for a Leafs team whose statistical chances of making the playoffs stood at 3.6 per cent before the game.
This morning, they awoke just two points back of Carolina and four back of Buffalo, but now there are only 10 games left in Toronto's season. The Hurricanes have 11 and the Sabres have an even dozen.
Gulp.
"We just never seemed to have enough energy for second-effort kind of opportunities around the net," said head coach Ron Wilson. "The second period, every chance they seemed to have went into the net."
We're not saying that last quote was a commentary on Giguere's play. But we have known coaches over the years that used those exact words to paint the picture of a goaltender who simply didn't make a big save all night long.
"Hey, if we're not going to score, it doesn't matter what the goalie is doing," Wilson said.
Nice recovery.
The 23-year-old goalie who was supposed to be tired - James Reimer - watched from the press box, only a night after he had turned in a valiant performance in a 3-1 win at Carolina. Wilson said they'd set the schedule weeks ago where Reimer and Giguere each would get a start during these back-to-back games, and all the coach was doing was sticking with the plan.
He should have played a hunch. The nearly 34-year-old goalie who was supposed to be fresh looked tired, hardly giving the Toronto Maple Leafs the kind of goaltending you need at this time of year.
It's never pretty to watch an ageing goalie go from a Stanley Cup winning starter to chancy backup, but that's what we're witnessing with the leaky Giguere in Toronto. The former champion simply doesn't inspire a lot of confidence anymore, and as Reimer watched from the press box, you could hear the second guessing all the way from Ontario as Florida scored on two of their first 10 shots on Giguere.
Toronto started the game with absolutely no urgency in a game they absolutely had to have. The teams adjourned to their dressing rooms after 20 minutes in a scoreless tie, where the young Panthers must have realized, "Hey, we're not going to have to work real hard to win this one."
"(Toronto) can't afford to lose - especially to us," Florida head coach Peter DeBoer said after the morning skate. And he was right - on both counts.
Florida stormed out for the second period and laid claim to the game with goals at 0:49 (Sergei Samsonov), 5:11 (Stephen Weiss) and 11:31 (Mike Santorelli) of the middle period, the latter two coming on the power play.
The key stat here is obvious. Florida's power play went 2-for-2, while Toronto's was 0-for-5.
Meanwhile, it was the second game of Nazem Kadri's call-up, though he was unable to stand out among a futile group of Leafs forwards. Kadri had neither a point nor a shot on goal in 12:03 of ice time in Carolina Wednesday, and on Thursday, he got four minutes of ice time and had just a single shot to show for it.
What did his head coach think of Kadri's play?
"Well, uh, you know," began Wilson, his mental editing suite in full gear. "It's the NHL. We didn't call him up here to be a saviour. There are a lot of things he's got to work on."
In that regard, Kadri fit right into this Leafs roster.
They've all got a lot of things to work on right now. After this loss however, the job doesn't look it's going to come in the near future..
