Maple Leafs ‘Sloppy’ and ‘Careless’ in Season-Opening Loss to Canadiens

MONTREAL — There’s something dangerous about sticking with the same core and same message with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

There’s always the risk of having history repeat itself.

For all the talk about how much apathy there might have been from fans for the regular season, given the club’s lack of post-season success, Toronto still have to get there.

That’s probably not in jeopardy after a 4-3 regulation loss to the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre on Wednesday, but what it did show is that the Maple Leafs appears to be same old Leafs.

“For what we’ve been through as a team, for how experienced we are, that was unacceptable,” Sheldon Keefe said after the game.

The Maple Leafs’ coach repeated that statement a couple of times. The same coach who watched his team miss out on opportunities to advance against the same Canadiens during the first round of the 2021 NHL Playoffs. The same coach watched the same Canadiens get the better of his team on multiple occasions during the 2021-22 season.

Toronto’s offense-first mentality was certainly there on Wednesday and they did resemble a club that set a franchise record last season with 54 wins and 115 points.

In fact, Toronto’s first period was outstanding. They overcame three consecutive penalties and opened the scoring when Michael Bunting scored at 11:41.

But as the period went one they finally got power-play chances and were unable to cash in on four different attempts.

“We obviously want to generate goals but that didn’t happen tonight,” Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly said “That’s an area we need to improve on as well.

Toronto finished last season with the NHL’s best power play at 27 percent.

Another issue was putting the defensive tandem of Jake Muzzin and Justin Holl back together.

Both had their issues at time when paired together last season and saw more success apart. But given that Keefe had wanted to pair Rielly with TJ Brodie and Mark Giordano with Rasmus Sandin, that left the two to skate together, and it was a bit of a circus.

There were a few times when Holl lost control of a puck in his own zone, particularly while on the penalty kill in the opening period. 

And both Holl and Muzzin had a hard time clearing the puck out of harm’s way in the final minute of regulation, leading to Josh Anderson’s winning goal.

“On the game-winning goal, part of it is just letting the clock wind down in the offensive zone, at the very least they’re not going to be going fast-break the other way and getting life again,” Keefe said of the play. “It starts there and then the puck is just bouncing around there and we give it back to them in their own end, too.” 

The Canadiens, to their credit, deserved to win the game. They had a big third period where the game tilted in their favour and that helped them narrowly beat Toronto at even-strength expected goals by just over a one percent margin.

Expected by many to finish at or near the bottom of the standings with an inexperienced defense and the unlikely return of Carey Price to the club anytime soon, Montreal clawed and battled their way to victory.

Montreal got into Toronto’s shooting lane. Canadiens defenseman David Savard had nine blocked shots. For a season-opener that is an extremely high number. And when the Canadiens got the puck, they burned the Leafs on the other end of the ice.

“I think we were just sloppy at times and fed into their strength of playing off the rush,” Maple Leafs captain John Tavares said.

Mistakes were made and it is just one game, but Keefe is not letting the club off the hook. After Toronto quadruple-downed on not making any major changes to the club after another disappointing opening-round playoff exit, these were the types of losses Keefe was looking to avoid. The ones that cast doubt over the core’s ability to learn from their past mistakes.

It is one game. They’ll be able to wash it immediately with their home opener against the Washington Capitals on Thursday.

But this one could linger if Toronto doesn’t show an immediate bounce-back.

“It was just careless,” Keefe said. “I expect more. It wasn’t good enough and we deserved to lose.”

Murray’s debut

Matt Murray allowed four goals on 23 shots in his Maple Leafs debut. While they won’t look good from a save-percentage standpoint, he actually faired well in his opening start.

Hey made a couple of saves to keep his team in the game. One was a spectacular glove save off Cole Caufield. 

The other was an excellent read on Kirby Dach’s wraparound when he dropped his paddle and ensured the puck stayed out of the net, despite a lengthy video review.

Murray’s only true blemish was on the second goal when he was beat clean by Caufield on the Montreal player’s second goal of the game.

“I just made a bad read and probably should have taken the extra step there,” Murray admitted. “I would have been more in his face, it was a good shot by him but I probably should have had it.”

Malgin

Denis Malgin scored his first goal as a Leaf since coming up pointless in his first go-around with Toronto during the 2019-20 season. The Swiss forward earned one of the final roster spots out of training camp over Nick Robertson. Much of it came down to the fact that the 25-year-old Malgin would have required waivers while the 21-year-old Robertson’s as waivers-exempt.