The Toronto Maple Leafs looked disjointed in their first loss of the season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs looked disjointed in their first loss of the season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have surrendered the opening goal in all three games this season. But unlike the first two games in which they fell behind, the Leafs weren't able to provide enough firepower to overcome their transgressions on Monday in a 4-1 loss against a Chicago Blackhawks team that finished with the third-worst record in the NHL in 2022-23.
The Maple Leafs played in arguably their worst first period to the season with just 30 percent of the expected-goals share, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. When they got things back on track in the second, the Leafs got buried by surrendering breakaways on the other end of the ice.
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"I thought we were really sloppy with the puck in the first period and then we got beat in transition in the second period," Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said. "The turnover stuff, just careless with the puck and it’s all our best players. Really really careless to start the game. So that didn’t give us a chance to take a hold of the game like you want to be able to do on home ice. We’ve seen this movie before"
Indeed we have seen this before where Keefe has called out his players for some early-season issues.
So what's different this time? Is it the new players that were brought in to change the dynamic?
The main issue is clearly the defensive side of the game.
"There are some areas we have to clean up. Obviously, structure is important to us," Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly said. "It just comes down to execution and structure. Just staying focused.”
In the third period, the Leafs switched up the defensive pairs for the first time this season, moving Timothy Liljegren up to skate with Jake McCabe while John Klingberg skated with Mark Giordano. Keefe said it was just to change things up.
Klingberg and McCabe had had the worst expected goals rating of any Maple Leafs defensemen at 43 and 44 percent, respectively.
Toronto's game could be best summed by Keefe's description of Joseph Woll. Making his season debut after Ilya Samsonov started the first two games.
"I thought Joe was good. The goals he let in, guys were in alone on him," Keefe said. "We didn't get in alone on their goalie, I don't think at all, all night. That's the difference."
Following the Maple Leafs' 7-4 win against the Minnesota Wild, Keefe said his team wasn't playing well enough defensively in front of their goaltenders and certainly a loss like this one could help reinforce the issue.
But they are 2-1-0 through three games and now head out onto a five-game road trip beginning on Thursday against the Florida Panthers in a 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs rematch. For now, they'll have to sit with this game.
"We can say it’s a long season but we want to get our game going as soon as possible," Maple Leafs captain John Tavares said. "Each game matters the same. When you look at the game as a whole, we’ve got to get more connected from start to finish."
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