All at once, this was a vital two points, a very fitting final four minutes to the Joe Bowen tribute game, and a not-at-all-reassuring performance by the Maple Leafs overall.

This was the actual reality of this performance for the vast majority of the game:

Let’s hope the internal feedback from Craig Berube is a lot more critical and on-point than his external messaging. On Saturday night, after the loss to Edmonton, the first two periods were called pretty good outside of a couple of mental mistakes. Tonight, it was again about a few frustrating mistakes early amid an “actually pretty good” start.

Can you really lambaste the team on the bench for having one shot on goal in the first 12 minutes, storm off the bench at the first intermission with steam coming out of your ears, hear boos from the fans throughout (which the players themselves admitted were deserved), tell the media after the game that the start was actually pretty good outside of a shorthanded goal (before adding the team then improved in the second and third), and actually mean it? Or is the media relations strategy following a nothing-to-see-here, don’t-criticize-wins, don’t-feed-the-baying-wolves kind of tone, while keeping the more honest assessments inside the room?  If his post-game words are reflective of his actual, honest-to-God assessment of the team’s play tonight, Berube has little hope of fixing a problem he’s completely unaware of.

At the end of the day, the action on the ice always speaks much louder than the post-game words, and the same problems persist for this team on the ice. They struggled to exert any kind of sustained control over the game against a ripe-for-the-picking, Bedard-less Chicago team on what should’ve been a night featuring plenty of emotional investment from the boys in blue and white.

The Leafs created very little in this game for 55 minutes. The shorthanded goal against was a total joke, and there actually should’ve been two shorties against (there was a low-key spectacular Joe Woll save on another grade-A against). The top line, whose effort was called really good by the coach, didn’t generate much of anything up until the very end of the game — when they scored a five-on-five goal off a faceoff win that got a double deflection from an OEL point shot — in a primary matchup against Jason Dickinson, Ilya Mikheyev, and Teuvo Teravainen. High-danger chances in 14 minutes of five-on-five time for the loaded top line were 2-1 Leafs, per Natural Stat Trick.

The reality is, if Matthews’ underachievement necessitates playing him with both the team’s best left winger and best right winger in order to get him going, the line needs to truly dominate, especially in this kind of matchup. This was certainly not that, and the downstream effects of loading up a line were very much felt; the Joshua-Roy-Domi line was predictably non-viable, and Berube turned to Joshua-Roy-McMann (which has proven viable) in the third period.

The shift/effort by Nick Robertson to draw a penalty was a big part of this comeback late in the third period. Personally, if I were the coach, I’d have been shouting out an effort like Robertson’s tonight instead of praising up the top line in this one, but that’s just me. As one of the few Leafs going early, Scott Laughton’s minutes also should’ve finished higher than 11:12. Dakota Joshua — who hit a post on a nice rush in the first, got robbed by a lucky stick save on a nice finishing attempt in the third, and scored the game-winner — also deserves a nod, as well as OEL’s continued contributions off the blue line.

Outside of a regulation win for the standings, what tonight might (hopefully) achieve is injecting some swagger back in Matthews’ game, after he helped set up the 2-1 goal and scored the big 2-2 goal with a nice finish on the ailing power play. If this team is going anywhere serious, they obviously need Matthews to start driving it both on the power play and at five-on-five — and in the latter case, it must come without requiring both Knies and Nylander on either side of him, so the team can create real depth and matchup problems for serious opponents.

In any event, the Leafs are now 6-2-2 in their last 10, are just four points out of a divisional playoff spot with a game in hand, and have a shot of fighting their way into a playoff spot by Christmas with a good upcoming road trip. But the process behind these results still needs to improve significantly if they’re to be taken seriously.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights: Maple Leafs 3 vs. Blackhawks 2

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