After their eighth straight loss, the Toronto Maple Leafs are struggling to find answers as their playoff hopes continue to fade into a season-long disaster.
MONTREAL — If you didn’t watch the opening 20 minutes of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ 3-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, you probably would have thought the club was just a bit unlucky. But the first period was a disaster; they were fortunate to only be down 2-0 after being outshot 18-5 by a Canadiens club loaded with young talent.
In isolation, it wasn’t the worst game for the Leafs, but they lost their eighth game in a row, falling to 0-6-2 since the Olympic break. They’re out of moral victories, and the playoffs aren’t in sight.
William Nylander scored Toronto’s lone goal, a lovely give-and-go with rookie Easton Cowan, but they just couldn’t finish. The club has averaged just 1.875 goals over the eight-game span.
"I think it's a lot of losses in a row now," Nylander said after the game. "I think in parts of all the games we've been playing, we've been playing snippets of good hockey. And that's not how we want to play. We want to play a full game of good hockey. So until we trend closer to that, I think then it'll be positive".
The issues are evident, but Toronto seems to be at a loss for why they have had a lack of finish. Auston Matthews has now gone 12 consecutive games without a goal as Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube remains at a loss in terms of how to get a full 60 minutes out of his club.
"It's tough to say. I mean, it's hard to win in this league if you don't get it," Berube said. "You don't have to dominate a period, but you have to be in the game. You've got to create and you've got to defend. Throughout this stretch, there's been a lot of good hockey, but then there's that stretch, if it's a period or a 10-minute stretch, where these teams scored two or three goals on us. And, you know, right now we can't find the back of the net enough. So when this is going on, we've got to keep the puck out of our net as much as possible and hopefully find our groove with the scoring. But we need more guys to dig in and contribute than there are right now".
Toronto fell to 27-27-11 this season and is now just five points ahead of the New York Rangers for last in the Eastern Conference. As far as the playoffs go, they are 13 points back with 18 games remaining in the season, and the outlook remains bleak.
Perhaps the first sign of looking toward the future was Toronto calling up the Marlies’ leading scorer, Bo Groulx, and playing him as a prominent third-line center. All things considered, the player showed promise with 14:13 of ice time and two shots on goal. Once the club is mathematically out of contention, I suspect we will see more call-ups.