TORONTO — Most left early.
And a bunch of those who stayed to watch the end of the Toronto Maple Leafs' fourth consecutive home loss used their voice to Bronx cheer Sergei Bobrovsky as he made a routine save with the game out of reach.
Boo birds flew as the win probability evaporated and the home team lost by multiple goals, for the third time in as many games.
Tuesday’s 6-3 defeat by the Colorado Avalanche dropped Toronto’s homestand record to 0-4. They’ve been outscored 17-7 over this span. And their record through 20 games is worse than it was at this point last season, when they tumbled to 28th overall and found themselves just bad enough to win the draft lottery.
Naturally, the spirit of a group riding high and fresh out of training camp has taken a hit. Frustration is creeping in. You can hear it in the tone of the coach and in the words of the players after their sixth regulation loss in seven tries.
“Of course. You don’t ever like to lose one. So, when they stack, you start to lose your feel of the winning. But that’s the beauty of why we play this game,” Jack Roslovic said. “I think the problem is solved (by) work ethic and determination. We’ll need it.”
Roslovic says that a dressing room crammed with veterans and all-stars and dotted with Cup rings has been vocal behind the scenes in trying to summon the energy and execution to stop the bleeding here.
“We’re really close. I think we can have conversations. We can yell. Nothing that hasn’t been said,” Roslovic explained. “But, yeah, I mean, look: It's tough, but we battle out of it.”
What’s troublesome about Tuesday’s result is that the dual returns of Roslovic and Chris Tanev gave a jolt, and that the Maple Leafs grabbed an early lead and kept the scoreboard tight till late. Moreover, the mighty Avalanche “didn’t have their best stuff,” as Darren Raddysh pointed out. Mackenzie Blackwood gave up a short-side softy to Easton Cowan to give the Leafs life, and Roslovic had the barn rocking with a Gotta See It™ breakaway to tie the contest.
Then more miscues, including an ill-timed Raddysh line change, gave the Avs more clean looks, and Bobrovsky couldn’t rescue the day.
“You're gonna take your chances and try to make hockey plays,” said Raddysh, after skating a team-high 21:36. “I’d like to have that change back. I was just trying to make a read. I thought I could get off, but ultimately ends up in the back of the net. And that ends up being the key tonight.”
Hockey is a game of mistakes.
Winning hockey is a game of limited mistakes. The Leafs have been overserved past their limit.
“Sometimes you make a bad decision, and hopefully somebody cleans it up. You make one, two, three, four decisions in a row — and (by) veteran players. Can't have it. Just can't have it. That's how you lose. It's just plain and simple. That's all hockey is,” coach Jim Hiller said.
“Our results suck. You can write those stories. There’s no question. We deserve that. But we've played some good hockey at times. And I thought tonight was another night, for a large part of the game, we played some really good hockey.”
OK. So, are the Leafs underachieving? Are they bound to turn this ship around with health and fewer missteps?
“I don't want to make excuses. Our record is what it is. It's deserved. I think we could have a better record, but we don't. We are what we are,” Hiller said.
The coach has pointed to ill-timed penalties, careless giveaways, poor line changes, and a lack of sustained offensive-zone time.
“But I like the guys. I like the team. We're gonna come out of it. Just really, really sucks. The only way, I told them: Stay together and work,” Hiller said.
“Can't hope. You can't be average. You got to work your way out. Every guy.”
The Leafs’ next home work assignment? Thursday versus the red-hot Minnesota Wild.
Fox’s Fast Five
• Hiller is the latest in a line of coaches trying to milk more from William Nylander. The superstar went minus-4 Tuesday and failed to register a shot on goal.
“I’ve seen him play a lot of hockey. I know he can play better than he’s playing right now. I think that’s a pretty fair statement. If you ask him, I think he would agree,” Hiller said.
“I don't think it’s just him. I don't think his line’s been great. But if we’re talking about him specifically, he’s a hell of a player, and he'll get out of it. He's got to. He's got to be a driver first.”
• Tanev is the personification of playing through pain. He is to hockey what the Black Knight is to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. ’Tis but a flesh wound!
No one should expect a defenceman whose medical record is thicker than an old-school phonebook to agree with John Chayka preventing him from playing back-to-backs.
“I want to play,” Tanev said plainly. “Hopefully, I’m not out too much.”
Hiller isn’t surprised Tanev voiced his displeasure with Sunday’s forced scratch.
“He just is a warrior. That’s been well documented. We understand his frustration, and we’d like to have him every night, but there’s a plan in place to protect him and the team,” Hiller said.
Our take: If a few preventative Tanev sit-downs are the difference in your regular season, you’re not deep enough to survive four rounds in the playoffs.
• Bobrovsky has now surrendered three or more goals in 12 of his 13 starts. He posted an .813 save percentage Tuesday. But it was allowing Gabriel Landeskog’s third-period winner 51 seconds after Roslovic tied the game that killed momentum and hope of a comeback.
“You can overthink easily. You can put yourself in the hole,” the goalie said. “You have to cut it off. You have to put that behind you and move to the next moment.”
• Neither Raddysh, who scored his first as a Maple Leaf on his 45th shot, nor Roslovic, who gave Brett Kulak the Heisman en route to a beautiful solo-rush, five-hole strike, could celebrate their nice goals.
“Yeah, don’t care,” Roslovic said plainly.
We saw one game of Matthews’ top line sans Roslovic Sunday, and it was lacking.
“He’s a big piece for us,” Cowan said. “Great goal by him, and he’s gonna keep playing good hockey for us. He’s one of our top guys. We need him to be good, and he’s been good. So, yeah, we all gotta follow his lead.”
• Ryan Tverberg was somewhat of a surprising call-up, considering Brendan Brisson has 10 more points with the Marlies. But Hiller likes Tverberg’s forechecking effort so much, he jumped right onto Line 2.
“I talk about working, being on the puck, skating. To me, he did those things,” Hiller said. That's part of the solution.
