Follow the leader

"Thanks guys."

Dion Phaneuf had just been put through his paces by the media fresh off his team's most humiliating defeat of the season, and when the interview concluded and the reporters turned to walk away, the Toronto Maple Leafs captain thanked them.

That's the way it is these days for the Maple Leafs' undisputed leader. Phaneuf accepts his role as captain, and if you believe his, "thanks guys," was sincere, it is a sign of his rapidly developing maturity. A lot of players would have gone into hiding after being spanked 7-0 in front of an angry home audience, but Phaneuf, who was minus-3 on the night, was sitting in his dressing stall waiting for the press when they entered the dressing room.

It would have been just as easy for Phaneuf to duck the media or, worse, act aloof and bitter at having to answer questions after an embarrassing night. Instead, Phaneuf took his medicine. He patiently answered every question about his team's poor play and didn't bite anybody's head off in the process.

It will be interesting to see if the captain's demeanor stays the same if one defeat turns into two or three.

"It's over, that's all it represents," Phaneuf responded when asked what a loss like that means in an otherwise great season. "We move on. We move forward after wins; we move forward after losses. We take the good out of when we win and we learn from the bad when we lose. We lost the game and we didn't play very well and we know that.

"We made a lot of mistakes tonight that are uncharacteristic of our team. Like I said you move forward. You park this one in the loss column and you move forward. Are we happy about it? No, but we have to move forward just the same as we would if we had won."

Phaneuf clearly had an off-night on the ice, however he did stir the pot late in the night when he nailed Boston's Chris Kelly with an open-ice hit. That drew the ire of some members of the Bruins, most notably Gregory Campbell, who challenged Phaneuf to fight. Phaneuf politely declined and while some may have questioned his honour or courage, Bruins tough guy Shawn Thornton was not among them.

"It was a good hit," Thornton said. "It was 7-0 so it at least had to be addressed. I'm not a big believer in having to fight every time you make a good hit, but that said we're a pretty tight team here so we addressed it. Obviously nobody jumped anybody or anything like that. We just let it be known that we're a tight group and we're going to respond. As for those hits, we don't want to get them out of the game. Those are good hits and I'm sure if (Kelly) was here he'd say it was a good hit. A hit is a hit."

Leafs coach Ron Wilson wasn't surprised by how flat his team was.

"The game in Columbus kind of led into this," Wilson said, referring to his team's 4-1 win over the Blue Jackets Thursday. "We actually talked about that between the second and third periods in Columbus. The way we were playing was an indication of a team that is going to let things get out of hand at some point. We were lucky in that game to have been up 4-0 and we were allowing bad habits to creep in. We relied, in the third period, for Ben Scrivens to make a lot of saves. Not that it was bad tonight, but it was kind of funny how every mistake we made ended up in the net. They only had 20 shots. Defensively, in terms of limiting opportunities, we actually played pretty well at times. It's actually probably better for us to go through a game like this now so that we can focus. If we lose 2-1 or 3-2 or 1-0, it would be like, 'Oh, we were just a shot away.' But we weren't anywhere close to that tonight."

Getting the Leafs back on track might be Phaneuf's biggest challenge to date. His teammates believe he is the man for the job.

Asked a while ago what makes Phaneuf a good leader, Joffrey Lupul said, "Just the way he plays every day. He'll play all 82 games the same way. He's a guy that's not afraid to get under the other team's skin. He can turn the momentum of a game with a hit or a fight. At practice he brings the same attributes. I mean he's not out here drilling guys, but he plays every drill like it's his last and I think a lot of guys can learn from that."

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy will cover the Toronto Maple Leafs for sportsnet.ca for the 2011/12 season.