• Maple Leafs need to start converting opportunities
• Defence must step up
• Babcock: “It’s disappointing”
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – The Toronto Maple Leafs are a team with money in the bank. Like good, proper savers they’ve been nursing their little nest egg, putting points away for a rainy day.
For most of the season the Leafs have enjoyed a healthy cushion of games in hand. When things were going poorly, they could look at the standings and gaze at the number of games they had to make up points and feel comfort. When things were rolling, they could look at the number of games they still had to play compared with their opponents and giddily imagine a rapid rise up the Atlantic Division standings. Look out, Habs.
But at some point you have to withdraw on those savings. You can’t take them with you. And the time is now.
[sidebar]
With 31 games remaining after their 6-5 overtime loss to the New York Islanders at Barclays Centre on Monday night, it’s time for Toronto to convert its theoretical points into real ones. Letting a 4-2 lead slip away and then blowing a 5-4 advantage with two minutes left isn’t the way to go. Nor is giving up a game winner on a 3-on-1 in overtime.
The Leafs got a point on the road which – theoretically – is never a bad thing, particularly in the final game of a six-game road trip. But this was a point lost as much as one gained, even if the point gives them 59, tied with Boston and into a playoff spot, for the moment.
[pullquote]“The games in hand only matter if you win them,” said Toronto defenceman Morgan Rielly.[/pullquote]
Rielly had two assists but was on for three New York goals in his 22 minutes of ice time, much of it logged against Islanders captain John Tavares.
“You have to take advantage of those games and make them count. We know what the situation is with the standings, we check it pretty frequently,” added Rielly. “We know what’s at stake when you’re playing teams within in the Eastern Conference. Tonight we wanted to come away with two, we only came away with one and that’s not going to be good enough coming down the stretch.”
The Maple Leafs started Monday one point behind Boston for third place in their division and the playoff spot that came with it, but with with five juicy games in hand. Toronto head coach Mike Babcock likes to break his season into five-game segments and expects the Leafs to get six points in each group of five games. The Maple Leafs were starting a new segment on Monday night and by Babcock’s math, the five games in hand could give Toronto 63 points in 55 games, compared to the 59 Boston currently has.
[relatedlinks]
But theory will turn to reality pretty quick. The Leafs flew home after the game to host the Dallas Stars at the ACC on Tuesday while Boston doesn’t play again until Thursday night, by which time the Leafs game-in-hand advantage will be down to three. Toronto’s advantage will be entirely gone by Feb. 22 as each team will have played 59 games — the Bruins having the advantage of playing just four games in a 15-day stretch thanks to their bye week.
The Leafs? Their date with the Islanders was the first of nine games in 15 days. Their playoff hopes will be in much clearer view by then, presumably.
Toronto’s chances will most likely turn on its ability to keeps pucks out of its own net, because the Leafs have no problem scoring. The Maple Leafs are believed to have set a franchise record by having five rookies – Nikita Soshnikov (4); Auston Matthews (24); Mitch Marner (14); Zach Hyman (8) and William Nylander (14) — score on Monday night. The last time they had four rookies score in a game was 1948. Toronto now has 201 points from its rookies this season.
Scoring? Not a problem. But the rest might turn out to be as defence presumably get tighter as the playoff race comes into focus.
“I don’t think that was the game plan going into it. I don’t think we wanted to get into run and gun,” said Rielly. “I think we wanted to be a bit more structured than we were. When you leave points on the board like we did tonight it makes the games down stretch that much more important.”
Toronto has now given up 22 goals in its last four games, including the six on 34 shots that got by goalie Frederik Andersen on Monday. Andersen has now given up 19 goals on the last 134 shots he’s faced.
Too many goals were at least, in some shape or form, preventable. After scoring two first-period goals to take a 2-1 lead after the Islanders Ryan Strome had opened the score before most fans had taken their seats, Leafs defenceman Jake Gardiner made a series of miscues on one possession as the Islanders tied it heading into the first intermission. They included: being weak on the puck – as in, not even attempting to battle for it — against the initial forecheck, taking the wrong side of the man in the corner and getting beat, and then neglecting to tie up his man in front which allowed former Leaf Nikalay Kulemin to bang home a rebound to make it 2-2.
Rielly lost body position on Tavares at the crease during the next shift and was lucky that Andersen somehow got a glove on the puck as Tavares nearly poked home a game-tying rebound. Andrew Ladd was unfettered as he deflected a point shot past Andersen with 1:29 left to send the game into overtime.
The 3-on-3 overtime didn’t seem any more wide-open than the first 60 minutes — which is saying something — and Nelson’s second goal of the night ended it at the 2:42 mark.
Want to stream 56 Leafs games this season? Sign up for Sportsnet NOW
So the Leafs got the point, but they didn’t get to leave with feeling of accomplishment that would normally come with it.
“It’s always nice to get a point on the road and if it was 2-1, I probably wouldn’t feel like I do right now,” said Leafs head coach Mike Babcock. “When you give up six goals, especially some of the mistakes we made defensively, for me, when you give up free ones, tap-ins by our net, it’s not good enough. We got to get that fixed in a hurry.
“It’s disappointing. We had the game won and we gave it up.”
Toronto hasn’t played at home game since Jan. 23 and practice time has been scarce as well.
But the Maple Leafs have had the luxury of knowing that they had some leeway with the way the schedule has broken down so far this season. They could always look at their handful of games in hand and know they controlled their own destiny. It’s not an advantage they’ll have much longer.
“The big thing is we do have the games, so let’s not get carried away here,” said Babcock. “Like I said, we got a point here tonight. We’re in a great situation. Let’s play and do the things we know we can.”
