The Toronto Maple Leafs got a rather rude awakening from the Los Angeles Kings, as Jeff Carter scored twice in a 7-0 thrashing at Air Canada Center on Tuesday. Los Angeles registered 43 shots on goal and chased goalie Frederik Andersen, while the Leafs managed only 19 shots on Peter Budaj, who won his seventh game of the season.
Toronto entered the game winners of their last three, but were thoroughly dominated and played very loose defensively against the bigger and more experienced Kings, who opened the scoring in the first and put the game out of reach with four tallies in the middle frame.
“I looked up at the clock – 12:54 was left in the first – and I thought we had played really well, had the puck the whole time. We didn't take a shot and didn't hit anybody, even at that point, but I thought we skated really good.… Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said after the game. “(The Kings) got better and we got worse and we didn't have any pushback in time whatsoever. As optimistic as everything appears one day and you've won three in a row, you get your lunch fed to you and you're not competitive, not organized and not prepared.…
The defensive pairing of Connor Carrick and Martin Marincin was particularly odious, as they were on the ice together for three Kings goals and were each -4 on the night.
Babcock shook up his forward lines midway through the game to shake up the chemistry. The rookie unit of Zach Hyman, Auston Matthews and William Nylander was split up and Matthews played the second half of the game with rookies Nikita Soshnikov and Mitch Marner.
After scoring 10 points in his first six games, Matthews has just one assist in his last seven, Nylander has one assist in his last four games and Hyman has just one point in 13 games.
“The good thing about (this loss) is we'll get up in the morning and the sun's going to get up, we're going to go to the rink and work. After we do our penance we'll probably get on with it, but you're not just going to get up tomorrow and everything is going to be rosy.… Babcock said. “We embarrassed ourselves here today and so it's like anything, you get to the rink and you go to work and reset what you've got to do and you understand what happened and go from there.…
The Leafs head coach was true to his word, putting the players through a strenuous bag skate through a power outage at the Mastercard Center in Etobicoke on Wednesday; a scene reminiscent of the movie “Miracle….
Power went out at the rink. #Leafs continue to practice. pic.twitter.com/Dbt0ppI2SR
— Kristen Shilton (@kristen_shilton) November 9, 2016
There was no sign at practice that the line shuffle will remain for the club’s next contest against the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday, but it is possible that Matt Hunwick Frank Corrado, Peter Holland or Seth Griffith could get back into the lineup.
*******
The #leafs plan to unveil Centennial Classic sweaters in a few weeks. Believe the @sportslogosnet leak is pretty close to the real thing. pic.twitter.com/gHMF4shXq6
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) November 9, 2016
*******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 Follow @mikeinbuffalo 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.