Penalties killing playoff hopes

With injuries continuing to mount, the deck appeared stacked against the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday in Florida.

So it was really no surprise that in spite of the fact Toronto dominated the game for long stretches, the visitors fell 5-3 to the host Panthers. And, once again, it was the penalty-kill that sealed its fate.

The Leafs are the worst penalty-killing team in the NHL and it showed in the second period when the Panthers scored two extra-man goals 2:43 apart -- the second of which, by ex-Leaf Kris Versteeg that proved to be the game-winning goal.

Coming off back-to-back wins against the Buffalo Sabres and New York Islanders, the Leafs were hoping to kick off their three-game road trip with another victory. They will play the Hurricanes in Carolina Thursday and then will make their first trip to Winnipeg to play the Jets on New Year's Eve.

The Leafs have been bitten hard by the injury bug this season and on Tuesday the team was without veteran defencemen Mike Komisarek and John-Michael Liles, as well as forwards Mike Brown, Matthew Lombardi and Colby Armstrong. Liles missed his second straight game and has been placed on the injured reserve list with a possible concussion.

During the game it was announced the Leafs had called up German-born defenceman Korbinian Holzer from the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League. It is the second time he has been called up by the Leafs, though he has yet to play an NHL game this season. His arrival has initiated speculation that Leafs GM Brian Burke could have a trade in the works.

One of Burke's favorite trading partners is Carolina's Jim Rutherford and the two could be face-to-face over the next two days. Rutherford's Hurricanes have been underachieving this season and, having already replaced head coach Paul Maurice with Kirk Muller, he is said to be preparing to clean house.

Leafs coach Ron Wilson has been on something of an emotional roller coaster of late. He announced, via Twitter, Christmas Day, that he had signed a contract extension with the team, but Tuesday morning Wilson confirmed, again on Twitter, that his uncle Johnny Wilson had passed away at the age of 82.

Johnny Wilson played briefly with the Leafs, but won four Stanley Cups as a member of the Detroit Red Wings. He had 161 goals and 332 points in 688 NHL games and then had a 187-241-89 record as an NHL coach.

Although he acknowledged his team didn't quit when it fell behind to the upstart Panthers, he felt it was more a case of his club not playing to its potential than the host side dominating the night.

"We looked a little rusty in parts of our game," Wilson said. "We generated lots of opportunities, but we didn't have much finish tonight. I wasn't minding our game at all because I thought we were kind of in control except for when we got into some penalty trouble. In the third period I was confident we were going to come back and we got back within one, but again, we shot ourselves in the foot at critical points when a smarter play would have kept us in a better position to succeed."

The biggest miscue of the night belonged to fourth-year defender Luke Schenn who carried the puck up the ice and had a chance to dump it into the Florida zone, but tried to get a little too fancy and turned it over. That resulted in the Panthers reversing the play and taking a 5-3 lead at 11:44 of the third.

If the Leafs are going to make the playoffs, they must get better at killing penalties. Most certainly the loss of penalty-killers to injury has adversely affected the team, but on this night, Wilson said a questionable call against his team didn't help matters.

Wilson wasn't happy with the too many men on the ice penalty against his team at 5:54 of the second period that put his team down two men and enabled the Panthers to score on the power play and take a 4-1 lead.

Early in the second period, with the Leafs already shorthanded, they attempted to make a line change when the puck found its way near their bench. The man coming off the puck grabbed it just as the player leaving the ice was hopping over the boards.

"If you watch it on the replay our guy is straddling the boards and I think it was kind of a cheesy call," Wilson said. "It didn't really result in us having an advantage on the play. This isn't a play where we shot the puck out (over the boards) or slashed a guy's stick; it's (a close) too many men that puts you down 5-on-3. I didn't quite agree with that one."

At the end of the night the Leafs gave themselves a chance to overcome their erroneous ways through sheer determination. Even though starting goalie James Reimer was pulled after allowing three goals on eight shots, his replacement Jonas Gustavsson played well.

Also, the club got some secondary scoring from Mikhail Grabovski who popped his ninth and 10th goals of the year as well as two assists from defenceman Cody Franson.

But careless mistakes and awful penalty-killing did them in again. For a team trying to make it to the playoffs, that has to change.

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