WASHINGTON – For the Toronto Maple Leafs, this is a time to readjust the priorities. Not to mention the expectations.
The efficient manner in which they’ve compiled points over the last two months – despite a 4-2 loss to Washington on Sunday afternoon – has left them in a favourable position with four weeks to play in the regular season.
Now it is up to them to seize it. They missed an opportunity to turn this into a special road trip with a dreadful opening period at Verizon Center, falling behind a desperate Capitals team 3-0 before the game was even 10 minutes old.
“We didn’t really skate,” said Leafs coach Randy Carlyle. “It looked we were still in for an afternoon nap. … The bottom line is we weren’t sharp enough and we didn’t play with enough energy or desperation in this hockey game.”
Lamented defenceman Carl Gunnarsson: “If we would have won this one, we would have been in a great spot.”
They still are in a great spot – at least in the Atlantic Division standings. If the Leafs can find a way to stay ahead of either the Tampa Bay Lightning or Montreal Canadiens down the stretch, they are basically guaranteed to avoid the powerhouse Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins in the first round of the playoffs.
In other words, they have a real chance to start dreaming of bigger and better things. Don’t forget that it’s been a decade since the organization got a taste of the second round.
Of course, the only way to actually take those strides is by finding a way to eliminate the lapses in games like they had against the Caps. After managing just two shots in the opening period on Sunday, the Leafs actually outshot Washington 27-17 the rest of the way and had a number of good opportunities to tie it.
This amounted to a missed opportunity, especially given that the team was coming off its biggest victory of the year in Los Angeles. The players even had plenty of time to adjust to the time change and got a practice in here on Saturday afternoon.
“We’ve got to find a way to be better,” said David Clarkson, who had a second-period shot trickle along the goal-line behind Caps goalie Jaroslav Halak and out.
“At this time of the season, every game is like playoffs.”
The next three games will certainly feel that way. First the Leafs will conclude a five-game road trip Tuesday night in Detroit, where they essentially have a chance to put the Red Wings permanently in the rear-view mirror with a regulation win.
That will immediately be followed by home games against the Lightning (Wednesday) and Canadiens (Saturday), which should have added intensity given their potential impact on playoff seeding. Monitoring the standings and out-of-town scores has already become a daily activity and it’s clear that the Leafs players know what is at stake right now.
“I think second place (in the Atlantic) is realistically our goal,” said winger Joffrey Lupul. “We’re probably too far back to catch Boston the way they’re playing now. We want to be second in our division. …
“That’s where our mindset’s got to be.”
It appears as though James Reimer is going to be the goaltender to carry them for the next little bit. Like his teammates, he played well in Washington after a sluggish start.
“We just weren’t sharp, myself included, and it cost us,” said Reimer, who finished with 28 saves.
Carlyle didn’t have any update on the status of Jonathan Bernier’s undisclosed lower-body injury following the game, but he indicated that Reimer would likely start against the Red Wings.
Despite that small bit of uncertainty, the Leafs are actually relatively healthy – especially when you look at the number of teams dealing with more significant issues. The Red Wings, for example, are currently playing without Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Darren Helm, Todd Bertuzzi, Daniel Cleary, Jakub Kindl and others.
When you couple that with the fact that the Eastern Conference seems a little more open than usual, this could be an interesting month or two. That’s assuming Toronto can find a little more consistency in crunch time.
The Leafs are currently on a 95-point pace – a mark the organization hasn’t hit since before Lockout II, during the 2003-04 season – and would need to earn 15 of a possible 26 points down the stretch to reach that level. Wins in seven of the remaining 13 games, plus an overtime loser point, would get it done.
From where the team sits now, that doesn’t look to be an unrealistic expectation.
“If we’re leaving the West Coast with anything, it’s that we can play with the top teams in the league,” Lupul had said prior to the game against Washington.
That didn’t show up throughout Sunday’s performance. It’s time that it does.