TORONTO – It was a win so big that Connor Carrick couldn’t get to sleep afterwards.
Literally.
The way the Toronto Maple Leafs rallied to beat the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night reminded head coach Mike Babcock of how the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots usually do business.
"I think when you see it as a fan you think about the comeback, but we played well," Babcock said Monday morning. "So we should never have been behind, but we just stuck with it and stayed the course. We watched a good football team do that yesterday, too.
"You just stay the course, you don’t get in your own way, you don’t panic and the next thing you know you win some games."
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The question now is whether they can make it mean something. Auston Matthews expressed hope that the three-goal third period in Ottawa might serve as a turning point on Toronto’s season – what with the blown leads and four-game losing streak and Freddie Andersen calling out his teammates immediately before it.
"Hopefully we can get on a streak of our own," Matthews said before the Leafs welcomed the scorching-hot Colorado Avalanche to town.
The Avs have not just won nine straight games. They haven’t so much as trailed since a 4-3 overtime win over the Leafs on Dec. 29.
They boast the NHL’s hottest scorer in Nathan MacKinnon, which poses a significant challenge for a Leafs blue line that will once again be without the injured Morgan Rielly. He didn’t skate Monday and is unlikely to return before this weekend’s all-star break.
The Leafs managed to thrive without him against the Senators in part because they didn’t spend much time in their own zone. They controlled more than 55 per cent of the even-strength shot attempts and finished ahead 33-18 in shots on goal while winning 4-3.
"I thought our forwards played so hard they made our ‘D’ look real good," said Babcock. "To me, it was the least opportunity we gave any team this year. We tracked back hard, we worked hard, we competed hard.
"Everyone in this room right here thinks you’re working hard – there’s always another level, right? – and we were able to find that last game."
It’s a level of urgency that has quite frankly been missing. That’s what made Andersen’s comments after Thursday’s overtime loss in Philadelphia so interesting. Quite pointedly, he suggested that it was time to find out who was committed to working hard for the team.
The Leafs are in a position where the push needs to come from within – improbably, they enter Monday’s game with a 13-point cushion on the final playoff spot in the Atlantic Division despite playing at a below-.500 clip since Dec. 12.
Babcock jokingly suggested that he didn’t mind missing Rielly, his top defenceman, because it would have meant one of Carrick, Travis Dermott or Andreas Borgman had to come out of the lineup.
"I didn’t know what the heck I was going to do anyways," he said. "Those three kids all played good. How was I going to scratch one of them? Now I don’t have to make a decision."
It’s a big boost for Carrick, who has been scratched 20 times already this season but has seen his ice time spike the last three games.
He scored the winning goal against the Senators and expressed about as much outward joy as you’ll see during a regular-season game when the puck got past Craig Anderson. What made it so special, he said, is that it felt like a night where every member of the team was pulling in the same direction.
"To be able to [win] that way was awesome," said Carrick. "You can’t have dead weight in this league. The good teams are too good, it’s too tight. You never know whose stick it might end up on.
"You’ve just got to try and execute every shift so that when you get your look you’re ready for it."
After the team plane landed back in Toronto, he spent some time with his dog and tidied the apartment. Eventually he laid his head on the pillow but it wasn’t much use.
Sleep didn’t come until some time after 5:30 a.m.
"I was fired up," said Carrick. "It was a big win for us."
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