The Toronto Maple Leafs deserved a better fate on Thursday, as the club led after two periods and got solid goaltending from backup Jhonas Enroth, but third period goals by Zac Dalpe and Eric Staal and a 31-save performance from Devan Dubnyk gave the Minnesota Wild a 3-2 comeback victory at Xcel Energy Center and the Leafs first regulation loss of the season.
Roman Polak (who played for the first time since being re-signed as an unrestricted free agent last July) and Auston Matthews scored for Toronto and Enroth made 24 saves, but once again defensive inadequacies prevented the young Leafs from protecting the lead.
Polak replaced the injured Martin Marincin(lower body injury) in the Toronto lineup and was placed with Jake Gardiner on the second pairing, while Connor Carrick moved up to the top unit with Morgan Rielly.
Nikita Zaitsev led the blueline in ice time with 22:11, while Carrick and Rielly played over 21 minutes. In losses to Winnipeg and the Wild, Toronto’s top pairing went -2, which will likely lead head coach Mike Babcock to continue shifting things around in order to determine how many NHL caliber defensemen he actually has to work with.
In spite of a small window of success paired with Rielly at the end of last season, Marincin seems ill suited to anything more than a bottom pairing role. Carrick has the speed and offensive instincts to play in the NHL, but his 5’10”, 191 lb frame may not be capable of handling matchups against top line forwards.
What appears to be at work currently is similar to what happened with the Leafs earlier in the decade, when they had a one top pairing defenseman in Dion Phaneuf, who was constantly weighed down by playing him with lesser partners like Carl Gunnarsson, Korbinian Holzer, Mike Kostka or Keith Aulie.
A capable partner would accentuate Rielly’s talents, as was displayed in the World Cup last month when the 22-year-old played alongside Aaron Ekblad and Colton Parayko.
A potential internal answer may be to play Rielly with Zaitsev (a veteran of seven KHL seasons) but if Mike Babcock does not want to put that pair together, then the only way that the club's defensive problems can be remedied will be to explore options outside the organization, such as RFA Jacob Trouba or Anaheim's Cam Fowler.
*******
The Toronto Marlies suffered a 5-2 loss to the Rochester Americans at Blue Cross Arena on Friday night.
AHL Player of the Week Kasperi Kapanen and Byron Froese scored and Garret Sparks made 16 saves for the Marlies, who lost their first game of the season.
Veteran Brooks Laich, who was sent down to the AHL last week after clearing waivers, saw his first action with Toronto and did not register a point. The Marlies take on Manitoba at Ricoh Coliseum on Saturday afternoon.
*******If you are interested in sponsorship or advertising your business in the Greater Toronto / Southern Ontario area on this column, please send a message for more information by clicking on the “Contact” button at the top of the page.*******
Note : Continue to check back to my column on Hockeybuzz throughout the day for the latest Leafs updates or on Twitter
KINDLE USERS: Please sign up for Maple Leafs Buzz, which includes a free-of-charge 14-day trial and is just 99 cents per month afterwards. For more information
click here.
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»