Injuries continue to pile up as Maple Leafs fall to Devils

TORONTO — Before the puck had even dropped on this Toronto Maple Leafs tilt, the home side was dealt another blow in a week that’s been full of them.

Wading through a difficult stretch of injuries that’s already seen pivotal contributors Kirill Marchenko and Morgan Rielly pulled from the lineup, the blue-and-white took the ice Sunday night hoping to find some redemption in the wake of a disappointing loss to the Montreal Canadiens 24 hours earlier. Then came the news that top-line winger Jack Roslovic, who’s been working through a nagging injury all week, was unable to go.

The quick-footed winger took warmups with the team, believing he’d be able to suit up for his club’s meeting with the New Jersey Devils, wanting to contribute. Ultimately, his body didn’t co-operate, and Toronto found itself down another key forward — this on a night when the team’s most important blue-liner, Chris Tanev, also was out of the lineup as part of a plan to rest the veteran on back-to-backs.

Their absences threw Jim Hiller’s lineup sheet into a blender. Colton Sissons started the night on the top line, Vinni Lettieri drew back in to replace the bottom-six contributor on the third, and blue-liners Cole McWard and Dakota Mermis slotted in on the back end in place of Rielly and Tanev.

By the middle of the second period, Sissons was out too, a lower-body injury plucking him from the game. And by the end of the third, the Maple Leafs found themselves on the wrong side of a 4-0 shutout loss to Connor Hellebuyck and the Devils — a third straight loss for the hosts, and their fifth in six games.

“We're banged up,” Auston Matthews said from the Maple Leafs locker room after the dust settled on the loss. “You know, guys have got to look in the mirror and just ask a little bit more of themselves, and take on a little bit more.”

The captain himself was particularly affected by the recent rash of injuries, the latest wave removing his linemate Roslovic, with whom No. 34 has found promising chemistry through the first month of the campaign. 

“It was 50-50 going into it,” he said of Roslovic’s status heading into the tilt. “We’ve got a lot of guys that are out right now, which is tough. But it's that next-man-up mentality — everybody's just got to ask a little bit more themselves and go from there. And just be better.”

“You know, that's the way it goes. Every team deals with it,” Jake McCabe added. “Every single year, there's going to be a stretch of games where you're missing a lot of key players and other guys have got to step up. We've shown that in the past here. 

“Nothing else we can do but regroup tomorrow with a day off, and come back excited on Tuesday to get two points and nothing less.”

The road ahead only gets tougher for Toronto, with Nathan MacKinnon’s Colorado Avalanche in town Tuesday, looking for some redemption of their own after getting dropped by the Maple Leafs in Denver a month ago.

Beyond adjusting to the injury situation, there’s plenty to clean up before the Avs arrive, in the captain’s eyes.

“I think it's kind of the same story,” Matthews said of what went wrong Sunday. “It's been tough for us to string together momentum and just consistency through 60 minutes of play. That's really been our Achilles heel all season long. And obviously we’re not really winning the special-teams battle right now too, which is tough, especially against good skilled teams.”

“I just think the excitement, the energy, at the start of the game,” added McCabe. “Getting that lead I think is important, because we have been chasing a lot of games. And that wears on you.”

The Maple Leafs held their ground through a low-event first period Sunday, neither they or the Devils mounting much in the way of dangerous looks, though Anthony Stolarz showed well when the visitors did come up with some early chances. But it all began to unravel in the middle frame, when New Jersey came up with a pair of goals from Timo Meier. A power-play tally midway through the third put Sheldon Keefe’s squad even further ahead, before Connor Brown iced it with a late empty-netter.

Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs were searching their bench for answers, Hiller throwing out myriad combinations of players to try to find a spark. Matthews, for example, played a stretch with Cowan and Sissons, another with Cowan and Gavin McKenna, a later spell with McKenna and John Tavares, and had a stretch alongside Zack MacEwan too, another with William Nylander.

“We had to move them around a lot, we really did. Part of it was, after that first period, we weren't sustaining much in the O-zone,” the coach explained. “So, it's not like the lines were working as they were constructed anyways. So we just tried to get some energy through some different players, through some different combinations.”

In the end, the home side couldn’t find the goal to swing the momentum in its direction. With another loss in tow, all attention now turns to the stiff test arriving Tuesday, and the dangerous opponents looming after that.

“The games aren't going to get easier. We’re playing some really good teams here coming up. We’ve just got to flip that mentality a little bit,” Matthews said of the road ahead. “I think we've shown through moments and stretches and periods of time against good teams that we're a really good team, we can compete. It's just a matter of doing that consistently and not getting too high or too low. 

“It’s just staying even-keeled throughout that 60 minutes, knowing that there's going to be ups and downs, and making sure that that next shift, whether it's a good one or a bad one, we’re flushing, going out there, and getting after it again.”

Doing so without the likes of Marchenko and Roslovic, two newcomers who’ve been incredibly important to the Maple Leafs’ cause this season — amassing 32 points between them so far — makes correcting course no easier.

“It's a long season, but it's a hard stretch for us, no question, playing good teams under those circumstances," Hiller said. "But it’s the NHL. They keep coming. So, you just have to be the best version of yourself, each player. Some guys are getting more opportunity than they’ve ever had — they’ve got to take advantage. The other guys, who are our key leaders, have to make sure their game is up to par. 

“We’ve just all got to do it together. There's just no other way.”