DALLAS — William Nylander could well be the most confident man in Toronto, most nights.
Tonight, even he was shaken by the state of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“I don’t know if I’ve felt like this before. If I’ve had a stretch like this,” Nylander said Sunday, following his team’s third straight loss and fifth in its past six tries.
The superstar was wearing all his clothes and speaking so quietly that reporters were tempted to mush their recorders into his beard to catch his words.
“I’m not sure. I don’t feel like I’ve had that in the NHL, at least.”
Nylander began this season among the (very) early Art Ross contenders. When the red flags of a campaign in peril popped up in November, he laughed. He said everything was fine. Check back in a month. Dirt off the shoulder.
The punchline Buffalo Sabres are now three points up on the Leafs, following the latter’s 5-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.
All the while, the smooth-skating Swede has not scored a goal in 11 games.
No, that’s not his worst stretch; that would be his 13-game drought at the end of 2023-24, when the Leafs’ playoff spot was already etched in stone.
But this is without question the most meaningful cold stretch for Nylander and his fellow Leafs stars, who have never sat dead last in their division this close to Christmas.
“He is getting his looks, and they’re not going in. But sometimes you’ve got to get around the net and get greasy and score some dirty goals,” coach Craig Berube suggested.
The thing is, the Maple Leafs played much better on Sunday, despite facing a tougher test, than they did on Saturday, and better on Saturday than on Thursday.
They defended hard around the blue paint. They outshot their opponent (28-21), which hasn’t been the case often enough. And they generated 11 high-danger chances to the Stars’ three, per NaturalStatTrick.com.
Still, it’s not enough.
The Stars’ Vezina candidate, Jake Oettinger, was dialed, and their game-breakers and penalty-killers did enough to land on the right side of it.
“We need to finish, right?” Berube said.
“We want bounces? We want luck? You’ve got to earn them, and you’ve got to keep earning them, you know. Like, it doesn’t just happen.”
Points-wise, nothing happened on a three-game road trip in which Toronto got outscored 14-4 and went 0-for-10 on a power-play that gives fans night terrors. This was the Maple Leafs’ most demoralizing roadie since the P.A. Parenteau era.
Consider the stat lines of the big guns, who’ve all been affixed with silencers:
“We’ve been building positively the past two games. But when we haven’t been playing well consistently for a while, we have to grind through it even more,” Nylander said.
“If we were playing well consistently, maybe tonight would have gone our way. Maybe last night would have gone our way. But, I mean, we’re just in that slump right now where you got to work yourself out of it.”
A dangerous-looking Auston Matthews thought for sure he had Oettinger solved on an early breakaway generated by his clean strip of Thomas Harley. He said, “We deserved a better fate.” Then the captain admitted how tough it’s been to remain positive.
John Tavares spoke of fighting the sense that everything is going against them.
“It’s a choice,” Tavares said. “You can either let things like that seep in, or you push back against it and choose to be confident and believe in one another and stick together.”
No trade, no firing can mend the mental wound here, which may stretch back to May for some, or stretch back nine years for others.
“Tough sledding right now,” added veteran Scott Laughton.
“Yeah, it’s hard. It weighs on guys. Guys care. That’s the biggest thing. And if it didn’t weigh on guys, then we have a bigger problem, right?”
They care. They tried hard this night.
Maybe that’s even more concerning.
“Look. You just got to leave the rink now and forget about it,” Nylander advised. “Everybody’s frustrated. Can’t bring it home. You need to let your mind relax and just focus on the next game, next shift.”
Laughton, 31, has seen all kinds of ups and downs over his 13 seasons.
But considering the Maple Leafs were thinking Stanley Cup two months ago and have hit the basement?
“Yeah, it feels a little bit different,” Laughton said. “But, I mean, I’ve lost 10 in a row and won 10 in a row in the same year and made the playoffs. So, you keep grinding, you keep working on it.
“You can string some together here and see what happens — but it’s gonna have to happen soon.”
Fox’s Fast Five
• Rookie Easton Cowan got the healthy-scratch treatment as Max Domi, who sat Saturday, drew back onto the top line.
Berube noted that Cowan would be served well watching a game after looking “light” in some situations in Nashville.
Indeed, the 20-year-old was muscled off a couple of pucks. He also helped create much-needed offence, put up an assist, and was one of only six Leafs to finish as a plus.
The coach was banking on another bump from scratching Domi, who played his best hockey (five points in three games) in response to his first trip to the press box.
• If you show us a better alternate sweater than the Dallas Stars’ ’99s, we’ll come to your house and cater the Christmas feast. These things are positively dreamy.
Even better? “Otter” Oettinger’s custom ’99 mask, a tribute to Eddie “The Eagle” Belfour:
• Jason Robertson leads all American NHLers this season with 23 goals. Make him an Olympian.
• As soon as the Stars finish killing a penalty, the Dallas game operations drop Eminem rapping, “Guess who’s back!” (from “Without Me”) as the penalized player hops out of the box and rejoins the action.
It is delightful.
• Quote of the Night.
Oettinger was tempted to go for the goalie goal late with the Maple Leafs’ net empty, but chose an easy outlet pass instead.
“I obviously wanted to shoot it, but I felt like I was going to end up all over social media in a bad way if I tried it. I don’t have it perfected yet. Thankfully, Esa (Lindell) made a nice play, and I ended up getting an assist,” the goaltender said.
“It was a business decision.”
