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The Maple Leafs laid their first rotten egg of the Craig Berube era, falling 5-0 down through 31 minutes to the Columbus Blue Jackets en route to a 6-2 final.

Stinky.

Your game in 10:

1.   The matchups against Columbus last year were pretty similar to how this game started. The Blue Jackets are aggressive and come right at the opposition — aggressive forecheck, very active defensemen on the pinch — but given their youth and general lack of quality, it results in plenty of opportunities the other way in transition/off the rush if the opponent manages it correctly.

There were a few opportunities for the Leafs to open the scoring before the game went sideways; Auston Matthews won a board battle and freed a puck up to Mitch Marner for a 2v1 with Matthew Knies, but Marner hit the defender’s skate with the intended pass. Max Pacioretty‘s strong forecheck and centering pass for John Tavares was heeled on the doorstep.

Once the team was two goals down, Nick Robertson chipped a puck by a pinching defenseman for a 2v1 but wasn’t strong enough on his stick as a slight stick lift jarred his twig loose and killed the opportunity.

For much of the first period, though, the Leafs looked like a team playing its third game in four nights. Columbus was far more energetic, and Toronto was not managing the puck, winning battles, or moving its feet fast enough under pressure. The shots read 15-6 in favour of Columbus after 20 minutes, and the Leafs easily committed more turnovers on the breakout than in any period of play so far this season.

In the words of captain Auston Matthews, “the neutral zone was the Autobahn for [Columbus].”

2.  Five minutes into the game, Columbus opened the scoring against the Leafs‘ fourth line + Rielly-Tanev pair in what was another inglorious moment in the defensive zone for Pontus Holmberg, who was shifted into 4C for this game with David Kampf healthy scratched.

It wasn’t as bizarre as his PK play versus Pittsburgh prior to Kris Letang’s goal, but it was another case of Holmberg putting himself on the wrong side of the puck and surrendering the middle ice to a defenseman jumping up (Ivan Provorov). That created an outnumbered down-low 2v1 situation for Tanev at the net front, where JVR banged it in from the top of the crease.

Holmberg put together a strong camp and played probably his best game of the regular season vs. Tampa once he was shifted down to the fourth-line left wing, but so far, he’s had more rough games than good ones and has had a direct hand in too many goals against for a depth player contributing no offense of note. The team has now been outscored 4-1 at evens with Holmberg on the ice. The Kampf scratch didn’t make or break tonight, clearly, but it did not pan out whatsoever.

3.   Amid an impressive start of the season (team-leading 22 minutes a night), Oliver Ekman-Larsson played his most forgettable period as a Leaf so far in the first frame. He threw a rough giveaway up the middle of the neutral zone and doubled up his mistake by skating a loop to the other side of the ice instead of staying in position, affording a bunch of space down the right wing for Justin Danforth to take a pass and beat Hildeby beneath the pads on the break, making it 2-0 Columbus.

Just before the Columbus 3-0 goal, OEL had a wide-open chance to walk in alone on the goaltender after a nice backhand feed to the backdoor off the cycle from Nylander, but OEL bobbled it.

The Danforth goal wasn’t the goalie’s fault, but of the three first-period goals, it was definitely the most stoppable shot (right along the ice underneath the pads).

4.   Just 13 minutes into the game, it went from bad to worse for the Leafs toward the end of a long shift for the second line. With Jake McCabe already in deep, Max Domi jumped up anyway to make a really low-percentage pinch, given the gap he had to close just to contest the puck on the half-wall. A goal that was far too easy for Mathieu Olivier made it 3-0.

A big part of the Leafs’ strong defensive start through six games — just 2.17 against per game — was how few of these kinds of easy goals or odd-man rush opportunities they were giving up prior to tonight. It was a massive problem early on last season as the goals against piled up, and it’s one Berube seemed to have a firm lid on during the opening stretch. We’ll see if it’s just a schedule-related blip on the radar.

5.  The first two shifts of the second period by the Matthews line were reasonably encouraging, but at the end of the second one, they switched off on the backcheck, a theme for them throughout the game (see the 6-2 Columbus goal as well). It led to the 4-0 goal five minutes into the middle frame.

Matthews was a little sloppy after the puck turned over, taking an unsuccessful swing at the puck carrier and then stumbling in the neutral zone. Marner’s controller turned off tracking back, and it all created another outnumbered situation to defend for the Leafs’ defense. That said, Dennis Hildeby had to take better care of the rebound.

The team’s performance in front of him really wasn’t fair to him, but this was a tough start for Hildeby. Even when he made saves, the puck tracking and rebound control looked off.

It was hard not to curse Joseph Woll‘s unreliability tonight. The Leafs were never winning the game with this effort, but good goaltending is usually required to pick up points in these tough schedule situations, and the team should have two good goalie options available to them, especially so early in the year. Notably, the Leafs will play a league-high 16 back-to-backs this season.

6.  There was a great chance for Matthews to make this a bit of a game at the back post at the midway point of the second period. It was set up by Morgan Rielly, who showed life offensively by jumping up for good setups of Matthews and Knies (at 4-on-4) for grade-A looks in the first half of the period. Knies was robbed on the one-timer — and Nylander bobbled the second opportunity — while Matthews didn’t elevate the puck on his chance as Daniil Tarasov made a great post-to-post toe save.

When Craig Berube loaded up Nylander next to Matthews and Marner, a clean draw win back to Matthews saw #34 totally fan on it. Domi also had a chance in alone after jumping on a turnover at the Columbus blue line, but he got caught from behind and didn’t even get a shot off.

Soon after, it was basically curtains at 5-0 Columbus. It was that kind of night.

7.  Amid a strong start to the season, this was a rough game for Max Domi, who committed the bad pinch earlier as the high forward for the 3-0 goal and failed to get a shot off on his breakaway. Prior to the Columbus 5-0 tally, he didn’t shoulder check for his man in front and got burned. He later took an undisciplined penalty off a faceoff against Adam Fantilli, his fifth minor of the season.

There was no choice but to leave Hildeby in the net to suffer at 5-0, especially knowing Woll’s status for Thursday is in question. Stolarz could not play any part in this game tonight after starting on Monday, likely starting on Thursday, and starting five of the first six games.

8.  Matthew Knies got one back for the Leafs with one minute to go in the second period on a good individual effort — strong forecheck, heavy on the puck in the slot, and a good finish on the turn for his third of the season. Through 40 minutes, Knies fired five shots on goal out of the Leafs’ total of 19.

Conor Timmins took a healthy run at Kirill Marchenko toward the end of the second period after the Leafs’ first goal. There were tiny signs of life from the Leafs, but any chance of them making a third-period push wasn’t helped by Max Pacioretty exiting the game with a reported lower-body injury, dropping them to 11 forwards for the third period of a back-to-back.

9.   The Leafs went to an early third-period power play with a chance to make the game half-interesting, but again, there was not much doing on the man advantage. Against Tampa, they grabbed a goal off a transition play during a line change by the PK — a heads-up stretch pass by Stolarz for what was essentially a rush goal — but overall, it’s really unclear what this power play is trying to accomplish in the zone at the moment. It’s surely not a wide-angled one-timer by Marner, which is all that came of this one.

A return to basics feels entirely necessary at this point — the team’s best two shooters, Matthews and Nylander, stationed on opposite half walls, ripping pucks on net, and OEL facilitating up top.

The only remaining silver lining from the Leafs’ perspective was a Nick Robertson nicely-finished goal in garbage time after a good middle-lane drive by Tavares, breaking Robertson’s goose egg in both goals and points this season. That dry spell was starting to reach the point where it would weigh heavy on a scorer like Robertson, so it’s not nothing.

10.  After six games under Berube in which the team was generally starting games on time, filing pretty complete 60-minute efforts from a work ethic and structure standpoint, and limiting rush and odd-man opportunities against from a defensive perspective, this game was a big aberration in all of those departments — sloppy puck management, wide-open neutral zone, heavy feet, and lost battles all over the ice… There was almost nothing to like about this performance.

Knies-Matthews-Marner has been dominating its even-strength minutes through six games, but they were outshot 10-5 and outscored 3-0 at five-on-five tonight before the line blender came out (though, notably and curiously, Marner and Matthews remained together as Berube flipped the other winger). OEL and Domi were off to strong starts to their individual seasons, but both had games to forget, to say the least.

It was three games in four nights, with travel after an emotional win over Tampa at home. With Berube’s former team coming to town on Thursday, we’ll see the response before jumping to any conclusions about this one, but it’s notable that the Leafs have now played two bottom-five teams from last season and dropped all four points to them.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

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