TORONTO — Toronto Maple Leafs fans got their last live look at the team for a while on Wednesday night. And what they saw surely felt too similar to the Leafs’ recent disappointing outings for anybody’s liking.
The Buds — who won’t play at home again until Feb. 22 after the 4 Nations Face-Off break — lost their third straight contest to a Minnesota Wild squad playing without injured sniper Kirill Kaprizov at Scotiabank Arena. And, for the third consecutive outing, all the Leafs could manage was a single goal versus their opponent, dropping a 3-1 decision to the Wild.
To be sure, Toronto had its looks. Auston Matthews dragged and snapped one clean off the crossbar from the high slot in the first period; William Nylander — on the breakaway he seems to get every night — also zinged one off the bar about halfway through the game when the Leafs trailed 2-0. Toronto outshot Minnesota — just as it held the shot advantage in each of its past two L’s — but still came up on the wrong end of the score.
“I thought there were some good things that we did offensively, it’s just been tough sledding right now, tough to score,” Matthews acknowledged. “They play a very good system, they really pack it in inside, so they make it hard on you. But I thought there were moments in the game where we did some good things offensively, just couldn’t get the puck to go in.”
For his part, Leafs coach Craig Berube agreed his charges were at least creating decent chances. Still, he sees some telltale signs of a club whose collective grip is a bit too tight right now.
“I think sometimes when you’re not scoring and things aren’t going in, you take a little extra second to shoot and try to get a little bit too cute,” Berube said. “I’m not saying we got cute tonight, but [we weren’t]quick enough.
“It’s a tough stretch right now with scoring, that’s the bottom line.”
That overall sentiment certainly applies to the current plight of Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly. The 30-year-old has basically been in a season-long funk, netting just a single tally in 37 contests since early November. The offensive struggles are one thing, but making matters worse on this night was the fact Rielly was bumped off the puck by Wild fourth-liner Jakub Lauko on the game-opening goal 7:07 into the affair. After stripping the Leafs blue-liner down low, Lauko hit Marat Khusnutdinov in the slot for a quick strike that had the Wild off and running and Toronto on the back foot.
Later in the first, Minnesota needed just four seconds to convert on a power play when Jared Spurgeon’s point shot deflected off Matthews’ outstretched stick past Toronto goalie Joseph Woll. Suddenly, a team that plays pretty tight defensively and was a stunning 18-5-3 on the road coming into Toronto had staked itself to a 2-0 advantage.
“We gave up the first goal; we got to win that battle down there below our goal line,” Berube said of the score that put Minny out in front. “We had coverage in front, but I guess it just got through us; we’ve got to get to be better there. We’re down 1-0, their power-play goal, we tip the puck in. That’s a play [where]we got to block that shot, not with your stick.”
When this Leafs team — which is currently without injured top-sixers John Tavares and Matthew Knies — is humming, digging out of an early hole is extremely doable. The way they’re going right now, it’s a different story. Nylander scored his 29th of the year 8:16 into the third to make it an interesting finish, but Marcus Foligno’s empty-netter ensured there would be no stirring comeback and certainly no goal from Rielly that might help him start to put the pieces together.
“Can Morgan play better? Yes, he can,” Berube said. “We all know that. He knows that, and he’s trying to work through it right now. So again, like our team — it’s a team game — that’s not all on Morgan. Yes, he’s a guy that we need offence from from the back end, and he’s just got to stick with it, and we’ll keep working at it, and we’ll try to help as much as we can.”
Ultimately, it’s obviously up to No. 44 himself to find the best version of himself, and the veteran is trying to keep an even keel through a taxing time.
“I feel good, despite numbers and whatnot,” he said. “So it’s a battle right now, just trying to compete and play the best I can. That’s what we’re all trying to do; that’s what we’re here to do, and I think we all put a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform. I’m no different. We’re all striving to be the best we can be, and when it’s not going your way, you do everything you can to change that. It starts with hard work and being a good teammate and committing to what’s going on and just staying focused.”
Remaining on task might actually get a little easier for the Leafs — who were overtaken by Florida for first place in the Atlantic Division on Wednesday night — as they head out for a four-game road trip that begins Saturday night against the Oilers.
“I don’t think we’ve really been on a road trip longer than three or four days this year,” said Matthews, whose club plays 11 of its next 13 contests away from home. “It’ll be good to get on the road and get together as a team. I think those are always the best moments to bond. Especially when you’re going through adversity like this, it’s the perfect time.”
We’ll know soon enough if it’s the perfect solution for some goal-scoring struggles, too.
