The Toronto Maple Leafs could very well lose their remaining four games and still punch their ticket to the post-season. But if they continue this string of bad play, they’ll find themselves with an earlier end to the season than they anticipated.
The Leafs fell to the New York Islanders 5-3 on Thursday night. It was the third consecutive game where they were badly out-chanced and it was the ninth straight game in which they were outshot by their opponent. It’s the former stat that is more alarming.
In the last four games, the Leafs have combined for just 21 shots in the second period, an average of just over 5.5 per game. They have had far fewer chances in their shot totals. But they got away with robbery on Monday night, when James Reimer came up with arguably his best game of the season as his teammates combined for 12 shots on goal.
“With a game like that I tell them (the team) that we have to accept responsibility as a coaching staff,” coach Randy Carlyle said following Thursday’s loss. “Obviously the things we are doing to prepare our group hasn’t had an effect for 60 minutes. We’re a better team than we displayed.”
The ‘back to the drawing board’ approach is a little alarming, given how well the team had managed to adapt to Randy Carlyle’s tight defensive system. So what has changed? Is the book out for the rest of the league on how to play against Toronto?
In the season high five-game losing streak that occurred from March 7 to March 16, the Leafs didn’t play nearly as poorly as they have over this three-game stretch. The reason why they pulled out of it so well was largely because they knew they were hard done by, given the effort that was put into those games.
With the Leafs so close to mathematically clinching a playoff spot (which can be done with a Leafs win combined with a Jets regulation loss) perhaps maybe some complacency is creeping in. A notion that was immediately refuted.
“Our lack of success in the last couple of games has nothing to do with thinking we have a playoff spot,” said Cody Franson, who scored one of three Leafs goals. “We don’t work that way, we work one game at a time.”
The Maple Leafs have played the last few games without defenceman Carl Gunnarsson, who continues to deal with trying to maintain a nagging hip. The Leafs have managed to play well throughout the season with key players out of the lineup, but their core defence has managed to stay relatively healthy.
“He’s only one member of our hockey club and others get an opportunity to play more minutes and play in other situations,” Carlyle said. “It’s a silver lining which is hard to find when you’ve played like that the last three games. The last nine periods have been eerily similar.”
The Leafs are just 6-5 this season with Gunnarsson out of the lineup. But with those nine periods being eerily similar and Gunnarsson sitting out for all of it, there may be something to it.
Still, the Leafs have to try and figure out what is going wrong? There is no place better for them to get it done than in Ottawa on Saturday night. James Reimer is 7-1-1 all-time against the Senators and undefeated at Scotiabank Place. But if the Leafs have to rely on him alone to get themselves out of this funk, they are in trouble. Fix it fast, or this team will be in for a lot of hurt come playoff time, which Carlyle has often referred to as a “man’s game”.