BUFFALO — In the aftermath of another dizzyingly entertaining game that ended in familiar fashion for the Toronto Maple Leafs, it was difficult not to start wondering about what impact these losses are going to have down the road.
Three games. Three shootouts. Three identical scorelines.
It was the Buffalo Sabres who took their turn beating Toronto 5-4 in a shootout on Thursday night, following the Winnipeg Jets and Pittsburgh Penguins before them.
Each of those results has come during a two-week period where the Leafs have posted just one victory in seven tries. More than anything, the stretch has demonstrated just how fine the line is between a win and a loss in today’s NHL – particularly on nights like this one where the tiebreaker is required.
That reality isn’t something that needs to be explained to the Leafs, not after what they’ve been battling through of late.
"One point is better than none,” said forward Nazem Kadri, who moved inside the top-10 in league scoring with another three-point night.
“We’ll take what we can get.”
In this instance, the Leafs actually bolstered their position in the Eastern Conference playoff race with the help of some favourable out of town scores. The Senators, Rangers, Islanders and Hurricanes all lost in regulation while Toronto moved to 35 points on the season – three clear of ninth in the conference.
That presented something of a silver lining to the players who snacked on Buffalo wings before boarding a bus for the short trip home.
“It’s not great that we’re not winning games, but at the same time we’re getting points,” Leafs goalie James Reimer said. “If things aren’t going your way and you’re still getting points, I think that’s the best of a worst-case scenario.
“Obviously we want to be putting more wins up there, but if we can fight and scrape for points, that’s pretty good in a down time.”
But what about the other one(s) that got away?
This easily could have been the team’s second victory of the season at First Niagara Center, which would have been an achievement in itself.
If not for a pair of blown two-goal leads, if not for a diving Ryan Miller save on Jay McClement, if not for a James van Riemsdyk shot off the post late in regulation, if not for a make-or-break Drew Stafford shootout attempt that hit Reimer’s glove and rolled in…
You get the picture.
Despite that series of game-changing moments, there was a fair number of things coach Randy Carlyle liked about Toronto’s effort.
“If we can continue to play with this kind of grit and determination and stay on the forecheck and play that cycle game, we’re going to continue to give ourselves the chance to win games,” he said.
They spent more than half the night rotating through just three forward lines after Colton Orr was ejected for instigating an early fight, Leo Komarov suffered an upper-body injury and Frazer McLaren found himself nailed to the bench.
That workload exacted a toll in the back half of back-to-back games.
“It showed in some of our play from a mental standpoint,” said Carlyle. “We had a lot of guys who were expending a lot of energy and we had to kill a bunch of penalties early in the game … but we still battled back, we battled hard.”
The battle will only intensify from here.
There are now just 19 games left on the Leafs shortened schedule and the next two are against Boston, which acts like a bully anxious to get a few good licks in every time it encounters Toronto.
With such close attention now being paid to the standings, there won’t be any need to hype up those matchups with the Bruins.
“Every game just keeps getting bigger,” said Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf. “You’ve got to expect a playoff atmosphere, you’ve got to expect a playoff mindset and you’ve got to expect playoff-type games.”
Victories would certainly start coming easier if the team could limit its goals against. The Leafs have been surrendering a shade under four per night on average since the end of February, turning a couple winnable games into losses in the process.
However, that topic (and most others) didn’t generate much post-game reaction in Buffalo.
For those of us looking in from the outside, it’s natural to wonder about the price that might be paid for the points that slip away in a game like this one.
But for the players and coaches involved in this frenzied season, the only concern seems to be grabbing whatever points can be had in any way they can be had – details be damned. All that matters is that the math is favourable when everything is added up on April 27.
“Obviously, coaches would rather have no goals against,” said Carlyle. “We scored four goals and we should win a hockey game … but these games – and you look throughout the league – there are abnormal games that are being played.
“I think one of those was tonight.”
It seems like they’re being played every night now.