TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs are taking on water. The buckets are out, trying to send it back over the edge faster than it’s coming in, trying to keep this thing afloat. But day by day, game by game, it’s becoming undeniable — this ship is going down.
That was made clear once more Saturday night, as Craig Berube’s club waded through yet another disappointing loss, as boos rained down on a squad that’s worn plenty of them this season. The Maple Leafs returned to their home barn having stumbled through a pair of tough back-to-back road tilts to begin their post-Olympic slate — a humbling loss at the hands of the conference-leading Tampa Bay Lightning, followed by a one-sided drubbing by the defending champion Florida Panthers.
Then came this. A date with another familiar foe, a Battle of Ontario reunion with the Ottawa Senators under the Scotiabank Arena lights. A chance to earn some good will from the Maple Leafs faithful, if not some crucially needed points. They found only more pain.
“A good first five minutes, I thought,” assessed defender Jake McCabe after the dust settled on a 5-2 shellacking from the visiting Sens. “We get the first goal, which we’ve been searching for.
“And then s*** the bed after that.”
After getting caved in through 20 minutes two nights ago — allowing three goals in the opening frame against Florida, while getting outshot 16-7 — the Leafs managed to draw first blood three minutes into the follow-up on Saturday, Morgan Rielly potting an early power-play goal to set things on the right track.
Then the waves started. The Sens sent a flurry of chances at Joseph Woll, breaking through with a goal of their own eight minutes later. Ottawa finished the opening period outshooting Toronto 16-2. By the second half of the next period, they’d tacked on two more goals, and were outshooting the hosts by an absurd margin of 26-4.
“I thought we started better. We just kind of lost it there. Just really disconnected throughout all three zones,” Auston Matthews said from the locker room after the fans had filtered out of the building. “Just bad. Just fairly embarrassing, to be honest with you. We need to have more pride in our play, no matter where we’re at, no matter what the situation is.
“We just have to have more pride in our game, and we didn’t have that tonight.”
His club found a brief glimmer late in the middle frame, William Nylander pouncing on a rebound and getting a second goal for Toronto on the board. Within two minutes, the Senators had potted two more of their own, negating any fleeting fight shown by blue-and-white.
And now it’s all getting all too real for these Maple Leafs. Three straight wins before the Olympic break have been erased by three straight losses since returning. They’ve been outscored 14-5 in these latest three, outshot 113-87. They’ve now dropped 11 of their past 15 games. With 22 games remaining on the schedule, Toronto sits eight points out of a playoff berth. Five clubs sit between them and a wild-card slot, and they lost to two of them in the past 72 hours.
It’s grim. And those who’ve been here for a fair while, who’ve faced the immense scrutiny of early post-season exits, are now feeling the weight of potentially missing the dance altogether.
“I think it’s just, right now, we’re just disconnected. Not finding our game. It’s a lot of pressure,” said William Nylander. The question was put to him: Have these Leafs quit on their coach, on each other, on the belief that they can realistically climb back into the post-season?
“Nobody’s quitting, everybody wants to fight for a playoff spot,” the winger said quietly. “It’s just, we’ve got to figure it out. … It’s still not impossible, but we’ve got to play a lot better hockey if we want to be there.”
“We have to have more pride in our play,” the captain added. “Nobody’s quitting here. It’s an honour to play in this league. It’s something that not many people get to do. Every night — it doesn’t matter what the situation is, where we are in the standings — we have to go out and put our best effort in. Especially on home ice.
“It’s not good enough. For ourselves, for one another. We’ve got to play for one another, no matter what. Yeah, it’s just not good enough.”
Asked to assess how it’s all gone so wrong, how it’s gone so sideways, McCabe pointed to the group’s lack of confidence — a diagnosis that’s come up more than a few times over the course of this tumultuous campaign.
“Confidence is a funny thing,” he said. “Lack of confidence can do crazy things to our game, as we’ve seen through stretches of the year. … It’s very fleeting. I’ve been around long enough — no matter how veteran you are, you know, there’s times where you don’t have that confidence. And this is a tough game to play when you don’t have it.”
It will only get tougher from here, as the playoffs slip out of reach. As the trade deadline threatens to pluck a few talented contributors off this roster, with a quarter of the season left to play out.
“It’s never fun to lose, it’s never fun to lose in this kind of fashion, three games in a row. So it’s hard,” Matthews said. “It definitely wears on you. But we just have to be better. I mean, there’s no hanging our head, there’s no feeling sorry for ourselves. Everybody’s got to look in the mirror and be better. … We’ve just had too many stretches throughout the year where it’s up and then it’s down — and when it’s good, it’s really good, and when it’s bad, it’s obviously not very good.
“It’s just been too much of a rollercoaster.”
For the man at the helm, time seems to be running thin. It has the look of a journey that’s gotten away from him. Berube can see the holes in the hull, the water level rising, as well as anyone else. He can feel the pressure too, can see its impact on his group.
“There’s all kinds of things that can play into it this time of year, with the deadline and everything, guys heads’ are someplace else. But those are all excuses. And we can’t make excuses,” he said. “Until guys want to decide in there how to play the game the right way, play as a team, this is what you’ll get.”
In the coach’s eyes, there is only so much outside the room to be used as fuel. Only so much motivation found in the desperate need for wins, only so much found in his own urging. At a certain point, it has to come from within.
“I can’t give guys this,” he said Saturday night, pointing to his heart. “Or this,” he said, pointing to his head. “They have to come with that. That’s got to be on them. They’ve got to bring the heart and the competitiveness that’s needed.
“They’ve got to bring that. They’ve got to want to bring that.”
