The direction of the Toronto Maple Leafs season appears to be going down an an all-too-familiar road after a 3-1 loss to the San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center on Thursday.
The Leafs have not pulled out of the death spiral that cost Randy Carlyle his job less than two weeks ago, as the team under interim coach Peter Horachek has gone 1-4-0 and struck out on the Calfornia portion of their four-game road swing.
After successive shutout losses to Los Angeles and Anaheim earlier in the week, the only thing that the Blue and White managed to accomplish was to not be the first team in NHL history to be shutout in every game in the Golden State.
After limiting the opposition to less than 30 shots for the first four games of Horachek's brief tenure, Toronto seemed to fall back into their old habits on Thursday, with an increased amount of offensive chances but at the cost more turnovers and allowing 42 shots on goaltender James Reimer.
San Jose scored all the goals they needed in a flurry midway through the first period, as Tyler Kennedy and Patrick Marleau scored 13 seconds apart to give the Sharks a 2-0 lead. Roman Polak narrowed the lead to 2-1 just over two minutes later, sneaking down from the point and beating Antti Niemi on the short side.
Toronto had a number of opportunities to score the tying goal, but could not convert 5-on-5 or on three chances with the man advantage.
Reimer made 39 saves in his strongest outing in over a month and kept the club within range until Tommy Wingels scored into the empty net in the final minute, but the Leafs goalie has now lost his last five starts.
“When you lose, the frustration is there and you say ‘OK, I’ve got an hour to deal with it’ and then you’ve got to move on.… Interim coach Peter Horachek said following the game. “The next day is a new day and you’ve got to be refocused and go back. We’re going to take that approach.…
Toronto has been heading in the wrong direction since the end of their six-game win streak and when their schedule turned towards mostly road games in the middle of December. Their record since the 6-2 victory over Anaheim on December 16 is 3-11-0, which one win better than the epic collapse last March that cost the Leafs a playoff spot.
The loss on Thursday, coupled with Boston's 3-0 win over the NY Rangers has Toronto trailing both the Bruins and Washington Capitals by seven points in the race for an Eastern Conference playoff spot and following the completion of the road trip in St. Louis on Saturday, the Leafs have five of the next seven games on the road before the home/away breakdown of their schedule evens out.
With the odds of making the postseason declining by the day, the question before Team President Brendan Shanahan and his management staff is what to do with the Maple Leafs roster prior to the March 2nd trade deadline and in the offseason.
There has long been a hunger on the part of a sizable portion of the fan base to do a proper rebuild as the Buffalo Sabres are currently going through. The last chance that the Leafs had at this organizational reset was following the dismissal of John Ferguson Jr. in 2008 and the first two seasons under former GM Brian Burke, when the club was near the bottom in the NHL and positioned well to draft franchise players like Steven Stamkos, Drew Doughty, John Tavares, Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin in three successive seasons.
The Leafs took a middling retooling route instead, finishing seventh and trading up to select Luke Schenn fifth overall in the 2008 Draft, drafting Nazem Kadri seventh overall with Tavares, Matt Duchene and Oliver Ekman-Larsson off the draft board in 2009 and swapping two first-round picks to Boston for Phil Kessel in 2010, which gave the Bruins Seguin and Dougie Hamilton.
Teams have come to the realization that they cannot build through free agency, since players like Zdeno Chara are not likely to ever get to market(and the dream scenario of Steven Stamkos being free in 2016 is not something that any organization should rest all of it's hopes on) and that acquiring core players via trade are the rare exception, so the draft is best way to get those building blocks.
It may be too late to get anything more than a single digit chance of winning the draft lottery for Connor McDavid, but the Leafs could start making moves to improve their draft slot for 2015 well before the deadline and more impactful moves over the summer to position themselves for selecting high in upcoming drafts.
Trading pending free agents Cody Franson, Mike Santorelli and Daniel Winnik for picks and/or prospects are relatively easy steps, they would have to be followed up with consequential moves like trading Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf over the summer.
These big steps would only be as a result of ownership giving their approval on a rebuild that could mean three to five years of finishing near the bottom of the standings and there has not been any evidence since the days of the Ontario Teacher's Pension Fund that ownership is interested in short term financial pain for long term hockey gain.
*******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.*******
For Those on Twitter: Follow @mikeinbuffalo
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.