With the All-Star break behind us, it’s time for Babcock to have a chat with his players and settle them down and prepare them for a grueling battle to the finish line. As we all know the intensity increases after the All-Star break and the points become more important down the stretch as teams are fighting for playoff spots.

Toronto is certainly in the playoff race as of now, but has a difficult schedule remaining with such a large number of back-to-back games. A team that is good to look at in terms of where they are at in the standings with games played would be the Ottawa Senators. The Sens and Leafs both have 48 games played, but Ottawa has three points more than our beloved Maple Leafs. There are a number of other teams floating around in the standings who have similar points but have played a handful of games more than Toronto.

The Leafs can’t afford to go into a funk and lose a number of games in a row. Not if they want to take advantage of these games in hand and dig their heels deep into a playoff spot.

After finishing 30th overall last season, I had very little hope the Leafs would make the playoffs, I figured they would hover around the 10th spot in the East and we would all be happy with the big improvement.

The way things have gone, I am absolutely thrilled with the progress made by Babcock’s Maple Leafs. But I’d be lying if I told you I wouldn’t be disappointed if Toronto never made the playoffs. Especially the way the offense has been scoring and the brilliant goaltending we have had from Andersen. Both of which were abysmal last season when the Leafs had very little offensive threat and couldn’t stop a beach ball.

What else that’s very impressive is the Maple Leafs power play and penalty kill.

Power play: Leafs are ranked second with a 23.7% success rate
Penalty kill: Leafs are ranked third with an 84.9% success rate

In February the Leafs have three back to back games lined up. Odds are that Leafs backup McElhinney will get at least three starts in February and it would be great if Toronto could get some points out of these games to help with their push.

Toronto’s number one defensemen Morgan Rielly was still fighting off his lower-body injury and wasn’t able to dress last night. That’s two weeks now Rielly has been out and in that span the Leafs have gone 2-3-1. It goes without saying that it will be nice to have Morgan back in the lineup when he’s healthy and ready for game action.

One team the Leafs will have to beat up on is the Boston Bruins who they will be playing against this Saturday night. The Bruins have games in hand but they also have been picking up their play as of late. After a slow start they have been quietly improving, which of course means Saturday night’s game is a big one and one the Leafs really do need to win to slow down Boston’s forward movement.

Tomorrow night the Leafs will square off against St Louis who just fired their head coach. The goaltending situation is very picky in St Louis as Allen has struggled mightily this season under Hitchcock and their back-up Hutton has been solid as of late. Hopefully Toronto gets the Allen matchup and will be able to kick the Blues while they are down. The only thing that worries me is that the Blues will be coming out guns a blazing because they have a new coach and will want to showcase their skills.

One thing is certain, if we allow 5 goals against in the first period, it won’t matter who we are playing.

What a stinker!

Thanks for reading, enjoy your hump day.

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