TORONTO — The old coach described it as “a tightening.”
The new one termed it “a recalibration.”
We’ll call it necessary.
With the Toronto Maple Leafs leaking dangerous odd-man rushes of late, and all those costly turnovers culminating in their first three-game losing skid since pumpkin-carving season, there has been a crackdown inside club walls.
A hammered message that has dominated team meetings, trickled onto the players’ individual iPads and into their brains:
Stop surrendering Garde-A chances.
Let’s sacrifice offence for defence.
Give our struggling goaltenders some help.
“My focus is on how we play as a team,” coach Sheldon Keefe said Thursday, when asked about Jack Campbell and Petr Mrazek’s concerning save stats.
“We need to do a good job of protecting our goaltenders. We haven’t defended well enough as a team of late. We’ve exposed our goaltenders too much to great chances against, and that’s affected them.”
Well, the Leafs’ recent rash of losing — and the sudden absence of hardnosed defender Jake Muzzin (concussion) — has at the very least caused Toronto to heed the directive.
Few scoring chances of consequence were surrendered either way in Thursday’s patient, controlled and skid-snuffing 3-1 win over the Minnesota Wild at Scotiabank Arena.
Two of the four most prolific offences in the NHL combined for 11 shots and no goals in a sleepy first frame.
A nice Matt Boldy feed from behind the net resulted in a Frederik Gaudreau strike that opened the scoring for the Wild in the second.
Then Auston Matthews responded 27 seconds later off the rush, sniping from distance.
As both sides bided time for their opponent to make a mistake, Matthews pounced again, converting a perfect rush pass from Mitchell Marner.
The game-breaker’s 36th of the season leapfrogged him over Edmonton’s Leon Draisiatl (35) for tops in the Rocket Richard Trophy race, a juicy reward for a sound defensive effort.
Alexander Kerfoot tacked on the empty-net insurance with 41 seconds remaining.
Yes, it was the type of safe, positionally sound hockey that thrills coaches and threatens to bore fans.
Make no mistake. Just as the Maple Leafs were wary of opening themselves to Minnesota’s transition game, the reverse was equally true.
“You better be sharp,” Wild GM Bill Guerin had warned on Real Kyper & Bourne. “They’re just too high-powered for you to be loose.”
Hence, the tightening.
High discipline. Low fun.
But maybe it’s the type of recalibration Toronto needs as it tries to gain some footing and emerge from its February doldrums.
Fox’s Fast 5
• Michael Bunting has drawn more penalties this season (32) than everyone not named Connor McDavid.
The winger was issued a warning for diving during Nov. 16’s game against the Predators, then dinged with a $2,000 embellishment fine Thursday for this incident against the Penguins last week:
“I try to play my game and play hard. And if I draw penalties, I draw penalties — but it’s not something that I go into every game thinking, ‘I have to draw penalties tonight,’” Bunting said last month. “If I’m able to draw a penalty and we go on the power-play, obviously that helps the team.”
We asked Bunting if he’d ever been warned by an official for riding that fine line.
“No, I’ve never been warned by a ref for embellishment. And I try not to embellish,” he replied. “I don’t want to embellish out there because, obviously, that’s a penalty as well — if I dive or something. So that’s not something I try to do out there.”
• Travis Dermott has had a difficult time earning Keefe’s trust, to say the least. So, it was refreshing to hear the coach acknowledge Dermott’s recent three-game stretch has been some of his best hockey yet.
• In the span of an hour, Chris Chelios lost his defenceman games played record to Zdeno Chara and gained the attention of Leafs Nation:
• Rasmus Sandin has been hitting it off with his new defence partner, “the Russian bear” Ilya Lyubushkin.
“First period last game, he showed his physical qualities and bear qualities,” smiled Sandin. “But outside [the ice], he’s a nice bear. He’s not afraid to chat about anything. He’s a very soft bear.”
• From the gospel-flavoured anthems to the Jumbotron history lessons, from the Val James puck drop to all the members of the Maple Leafs wearing “Celebrating Black Excellence” T-shirts, the club’s honouring of Black History Month was well done Thursday.
John Tavares spoke about the positive black influence on a predominantly white sport and how, despite signs of growth, there is much more work necessary to make hockey a more accepting sport.
“Myself or any white players, it’s important to show our support,” Tavares said. “To speak out and just let them know we’re there to help and do what we can to learn and understand and be better and make our game as inclusive and as welcoming as possible.”
