It’s go time.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been gifted a golden opportunity to become the playoff team they’ve been flirting with becoming for the bulk of their exhilarating, odds-defying, rebuild-accelerating, shootout-damning, house-money season.
The bad news is the Maple Leafs are mired in a five-game losing skid — Toronto’s worst of the season and the NHL’s longest active slump — and are coming off a humbling trip to California, where they learned how an untimely defensive lapse against an established playoff threat can unravel all of your speed and forechecking.
The Leafs also found themselves in lower-scoring games against physical opponents better prepared for their freewheeling attack and more cautious about committing penalties and invoking the wrath of Toronto’s deadly power-play unit.
The good news is the near-term schedule is laid out for the Leafs to knock the New York Islanders out of the East’s second wild-card spot and, possibly, steal the Atlantic Division’s third seed from Boston’s grasp.
This five-game block features exclusively opponents currently outside the playoff picture: Detroit, Philadelphia, Carolina, Florida and Tampa Bay. Though the Panthers added Thomas Vanek at last week’s trade deadline, the other four dealt away key players.
Big picture, it is actually in the best interest of the Red Wings, Flyers and Hurricanes to lose to the Leafs this month and increase their draft lottery odds.
“Stretches like this are critical,” James van Riemsdyk, hungry to end a 14-game goal drought, told reporters. “You’ve got to make sure you rest up and take advantage of it. Hopefully we can get into a bit of a groove here and start rolling off some wins.”
Another thing about the next five-game block? It features zero back-to-backs, which have bitten this team all season. Expect goaltender Frederik Andersen to start all five.
“Once we start paying attention to detail in our zone, we’ll end up liking ourselves a lot better,” Andersen told reporters. “That’s our main focus.”
The Maple Leafs will have no excuses Tuesday at home, as they are coming off three days’ rest and skipped the morning skate. They’ve already defeated coach Mike Babock’s former team twice this season, the 5-4 Centennial Classic OT postcard and a 4-0 shutout at The Joe on Jan. 25.
Detroit has lost three of its past four games and will throw defenceman Robbie Russo into his NHL debut.
“We have 18 games — our guys know that — to play our way in, but we have a game today,” Babcock said. “That’s all that really matters.”
To jolt his club out of the slump, Babcock has restored Connor Brown to the Auston Matthews line and moved William Nylander back with Nazem Kadri. Despite posting nine points in an eight-game stretch in late February, bubble forward Josh Leivo is expected to be a healthy scratch.
The mountain steepens for Toronto after St. Patrick’s Day, as the Leafs draw Chicago, Boston, Columbus (twice), Nashville, Washington and Pittsburgh down the stretch. Oh, yeah: And three more back-to-backs await.
Glance around the Atlantic Division. Montreal has reeled off five W’s in a row. Ottawa has a three-game winning streak, and new guy Alexandre Burrows is flying. Even with Monday’s loss to the Senators, Boston has won eight of its last 11. And, looky here, Tampa Bay — Leafs centre Brian Boyle’s old team — has earned points in 11 of its past 13 outings, crawling from the basement to knock on the door.
“We feel like we’re still right there, and we’re in a good spot where we can make a push,” defenceman Morgan Rielly told reporters Tuesday.
“It has to start tonight.”
Maple Leafs’ projected lines vs. Detroit
Hyman-Matthews-Brown
van Riemsdyk-Bozak-Marner
Komarov-Kadri-Nylander
Martin-Boyle-Soshnikov
Rielly-Zaitsev
Gardiner-Marchenko
Hunwick-Polak
Andersen
McElhinney
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