Slow start costly

The Toronto Maple Leafs did not answer the bell.

Perhaps they didn’t hear it? They sure looked like as though they snoozed through the alarm clock that signaled the start of Tuesday night’s home game against the New Jersey Devils.

On an evening when the Maple Leafs were playing 24 hours after an emotional road victory in New York City, and with their dads along for the ride, you would think the Maple Leafs would come out playing smarter hockey. They didn’t and even though they made a valiant comeback to get the game into overtime, which earned them a valuable point, they ultimately suffered a 3-2 overtime loss.

Toronto is the NHL’s 27th ranked penalty-killing team and took a couple of lazy penalties early in the game – one by defenceman John-Michael Liles for high-sticking and another by centre Tim Connolly for slashing – that led to a pair of New Jersey Devils goals. The Leafs can barely kill penalties when they are well-rested; so taking penalties early in a game when they are fatigued is a recipe for disaster.

"We got off to a bad start and our penalty-kill wasn’t very good and that put us behind the eight-ball," said defenceman Luke Schenn. "But, we fought hard and I don’t think the guys left anything in the tank. We earned the one point and obviously we’ll take it, but it’s always better to have two."

The Leafs deferred to the style they have played – rather successfully, it should be noted – most of the season. It is not exactly run-and-gun, but a game that has more of an offensive slant to it than a shut-down one. Unfortunately they did not have the legs to execute it properly in the early going and when you aren’t skating, you tend to cheat a bit. Cheaters never prosper, so it has been said.

Oddly enough, the Devils are about as bad at scoring on the power play as the Leafs are at killing penalties. They entered the game ranked 27th in extra-man situations. Yet on this night, it was the Devils power play that prevailed.

Still, taking three points out of four in two nights is not the worst thing in the world.

"I thought we played really well," said Leafs goalie James Reimer. "We had a lot of adversity today. It was our second game in two nights; our third in four nights and we traveled last night. It was a tough game last night so to come out and battle the way we did tonight; even though we got down early, the character we have to come back speaks well of our team. We were that close to coming away with a win and to get one point in the scenario we were in, with the odds against us, we should hold our heads high."

Leafs coach Ron Wilson wasn’t entirely buying into my suggestion that his team was undisciplined early in the game. Not that he denied his club committed fouls, but he wondered if the game was officiated consistently from start to finish.

"Sometimes you can’t control what the referees ‘decide’ (are penalties)," Wilson said, sarcastically. "Is it objective or subjective? Because you could then flip to the last 10 minutes of the game and say, ‘Why aren’t we getting the same calls that they got in the first 10 minutes of the game?’ "

Wilson has a valid point. If it was referees Marc Joanette and Justin St. Pierre’s objective to call it by the book, they did a good job early, but lost their focus late.

"Penalties or not, we weren’t ready to start the game," Wilson said. "We just didn’t have our legs or our minds into it and New Jersey was sharp and ready and took advantage of us."

Once the game got to overtime, it seemed like the Leafs’ momentum might just carry them to victory. But instead, an unlikely goat emerged.

Defenceman Carl Gunnarsson was presented with a clear opportunity to end it with a blast from the right point in OT, but he whiffed. The Devils retrieved the puck, raced down the ice and ended it with David Clarkson’s second goal of the night. Gunnarsson has played superbly this season and he rarely makes mistakes. Quite honestly, it really wasn’t much of a miscue when he fanned on the slap shot because he made contact, but didn’t knock it out of the park.

In the end, the Leafs were upset with the end result, but they were happy to get a point under the circumstances.

"We played a really good game last night in New York," said Joffrey Lupul. "We knew these guys would come out hard; they’ve been sitting here for a couple of days waiting. It was just a bad start for us. We took some penalties and they capitalized so you have to give them credit for the way they played in the first."

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