The Maple Leafs once again lost a game in which five-on-five offense (or lack thereof) was a primary culprit, as the Senators grinded out a 4-2 win to sweep the Battle of Ontario.
Let’s just get this over with, with a collection of scattered notes in place of a Game in 10:
Given the fact that the Leafs and Sens both play relatively low-event hockey (both hovering around 10 high-danger chances for and against per game), it was no surprise that Saturday night’s contest was a little cagey out of the gates. Each team was content to feel each other out and limit chances.
Neither team sustained much offensive-zone pressure, and when they did create some zone time, they struggled to penetrate the dangerous areas of the ice. It was a cagey affair, which tends to benefit the road team most overall.
The Leafs were facing a potential season series sweep vs. a division/provincial rival and were coming off a tough loss to Florida, their fourth loss in their previous five games. It wasn’t an awful period, but you hoped to see a little more impetus and dictating of play/offense than we got from the Leafs‘ perspective.
The long change in the second period typically helps shake some opportunities loose, and the Leafs caught the Senators on a bad change six minutes into the period. Brandon Carlo made a nice stretch pass to Robertson, who broke in on a partial break. Ullmark turned away Robertson’s low shot, but the Leafs maintained possession in the offensive zone.
William Nylander grabbed the puck behind the net and went for a skate around the zone. Nylander reset and (as he is known to do) decided he would do it all on his own. He threw a headfake that made Zetterlund turn his feet the wrong way, and then he drove inside and tucked one around Ullmark’s far pad—credit Scott Laughton for attracting the attention of two Senator defenders in front as well.
Laughton later fought Ridly Greig when the team was reeling after conceding twice in a few minutes to cough up a lead in the second period, acquitting himself well in the fight. It’s not yet coming together smoothly for him with the puck/offensively yet, but we can see signs that he is grinding away at finding other ways to contribute in the meantime.
Most deserving of ridicule/evaluation in this game is the Leafs‘ poor response to goals. Those are critical “games within the game” swing moments where momentum can either be reversed or sustained, and can indicate a team’s maturity which way it goes. After going up 1-0, the Leafs were quickly put on the back foot as Ottawa stepped up their urgency and pressed for the equalizer.
The Bobby McMann – John Tavares – Mitch Marner line badly struggled in this game and were pinned down in their own zone frequently throughout the night before Berube moved away from his initial line combinations in the third period. On the shift after the Leafs’ 1-0 goal, Ridly Greig beat Tavares for a near-wraparound goal that Stolarz came up huge on to stop the initial chance as well as the rebound opportunity for Michael Amadio. McMann then sloppily iced it, and Brady Tkachuk nearly scored on a second opportunity around the net.
Now tired, the Leafs ended up overloaded on one side of the ice for a goal against. Tim Stutzle shielded the puck on the boards from Tavares and found Jake Sanderson sneaking in off the point as the far-side winger, Mitch Marner, gravitated toward the puck. Stutzle sent a nice pass across the ice to a wide-open Sanderson, who made no mistake.
The Leafs were then given a gift to regain the lead less than two minutes later, but again responded poorly not long after taking the lead.
The Leafs’ 2-1 goal itself was a ghastly mistake/gift by Ullmark, who came way out of his crease into the slot to play the puck and fumbled it. Max Domi came flying in — or rather sliding in — as he lost his footing. It hurried Ullmark enough into misplaying the puck out of reach and right to Auston Matthews, who scored a desperately needed goal while Domi hilariously tried to avoid taking a shot to the face from inside the net.
Once again, though, the Leafs’ goal wound up giving more energy to the Sens’ bench than their own. Toronto was fine for a few shifts afterward, but coming out of the next TV timeout, the Matthews line conceded a tying goal, giving their 2-1 tally right back.
First, Tyler Kleven cut inside of Matthews for a look before Rielly wasn’t surehanded on the clearance on his backhand up the wall for a turnover. Carlo — who played a nice game on the backend for the Leafs — made a good poke to disrupt the initial Ottawa attempt, but the puck was just out of the reach of Knies. From there, David Perron took a short pass and a one-timer that he didn’t get all of to his own benefit; the puck fluttered through the air and fooled Stolarz on its way in.
It went from bad to worse 30 seconds later. Oliver Ekman-Larsson threw a nice reverse hit at first blush, but it came before touching the puck, technically qualifying the play for interference.
The Leafs killed most of the penalty, but when the puck went up the wall off a defensive-zone draw, Matthews didn’t win the puck battle to get it out despite getting to the puck first, and Jake McCabe (whose recent dip in play is notable) completely overskated the puck trying to support the play up the wall. With three of four Leafs killers caught on the wrong side of the puck up by the blue line, Claude Giroux fired a pass intended for Greig off of Tanev and in.
This was somewhat similar to the second Sam Bennett power-play goal on Thursday; the Leafs didn’t dig in and get the puck out when it really should’ve been out of the zone. There wasn’t a breakdown in the aftermath like on the Bennett goal, but bad things inevitably happen when a PK loses puck battles it should win with a chance to get it out high in the zone.
Combine a badly faltering PK with a struggling offense, and you get the results the Leafs are getting of late.
Chasing the game, Craig Berube reverted back to his top line of Knies-Matthews-Marner in the third, with a hodgepodge of other combinations behind it; we saw Nylander-Laughton-Marner, McMann-Tavares-Nylander, McMann-Tavares-Robertson, Lorentz-Holmberg-Jarnkrok, among other combos.
The search for a spark is getting somewhat desperate at this point. The Leafs have failed to generate 10 high-danger chances at 5v5 since their win against the Blackhawks on February 23rd. For context, in the first 56 games of the season, the Leafs had been averaging 10.8 per game. In the last nine, the number is down to a league-worst 7.92 chances per/60. At 6v5, the Leafs are sitting on just three goals with the goalie out all season, which is a massive step back from their elite status in this game state last year.
As hockey gets tighter league-wide, the Leafs are trending in the wrong direction. Their offensive play is flat and unimaginative at the moment; there are too many dump-ins without successful retrievals, and once in the zone, too many rim-arounds to no one, broken plays, and an overall inability to get pucks into the danger areas for quality looks. There is not much rhythm or fluidity or a clear idea of what they’re trying to accomplish within any of what the Leafs are doing on the attacking side of the puck at the moment. Berube will need to find answers quickly in what is his biggest test as head coach of the Maple Leafs so far.
The Leafs are now just 1-4-1 in their last six games, with the lone win coming in the shootout after blowing a 3-0 lead to Utah. Toronto has also failed to win in regulation in seven straight games.
The Panthers are still only four points up after their loss tonight, and Toronto has a game in hand. The Leafs also have two games remaining against Florida. On the flip side, the Lightning have now tied the Leafs in points, and they hold the tiebreaker (if the playoffs started tomorrow, the Leafs are heading on the road to Tampa). Ottawa is now just four points behind the Leafs as well.
The Leafs are hitting their worst patch of hockey at close to the worst time of the season to do it, but I say “close” because there is still plenty of time to turn this around before the playoffs. It’s hard to ignore the reality that in a tight hockey game against a rival, both Marner and Matthews were nowhere near good enough for the Leafs tonight (outside of a gifted goal to Matthews), and the response will have to start at the top of the player leadership group on Monday. Getting swept by the Senators, with two of the losses coming on home ice, should not be taken lightly, nor should the team’s recent form, and the response will be telling.
Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts
Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts
