One week ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs were brimming with confidence after winning a pair of difficult road challenges against the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings. The pair of wins in Southern California had the Leafs second in the Atlantic Division and thinking of the possibility of having home ice advantage in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs against either Tampa Bay or Montreal.
Seven days and three regulation losses later, the Leafs trail the Lightning and Canadiens by three points and have lost the luxury of being able to think about positioning themselves to face a less difficult playoff foe.
With the 5-3 loss to Tampa Bay at Air Canada Center on Wednesday, Toronto now has to be more focused on maintaining their ever-dwindling hold on a wild card spot, with Washington and Detroit within five points in the Eastern Conference standings.
What has to be of chief concern to Randy Carlyle and his coaching staff with just 11 games left in the regular season is that in the absence of stellar goaltending or their high octane offensive attack, the Leafs are wholly inadequate at playing a more disciplined, defensively responsible style conducive to winning in the post-season.
That was again on display Wednesday night, as a shaky James Reimer let a weak Radko Gudas point shot beat him 59 seconds into the game. Goals from Phil Kessel and Nikolai Kulemin gave Toronto a 2-1 lead midway through the first, but the combination of fatigue and the club’s inability to play a structured defensive game led to their demise, as superstar Steven Stamkos was literally left unchecked in the Toronto zone and allowed to score a natural hat trick that was the difference in the game.
“The area in which Stamkos scored his goals obviously you don’t want to give anybody of that skill set that kind of space in that area.… Carlyle said following the game. “We had five guys around the puck, five people in position, but we were coasting and we were watching.…
The Leafs cannot complain of a lack of goal scoring, as the club is currently sixth in the NHL with 208 goals for, but they have surrendered a whopping 219 goals against through 71 games. Only Ottawa, Florida, Edmonton and the N.Y. Islanders have allowed more this season. The Leafs and Phoenix are the only two teams currently occupying playoff positions that have allowed more goals than they’ve scored.
The scoring pace of the Kessel, Tyler Bozak and James van Riemsdyk line has declined dramatically from the numbers they posted during the club’s hot streak before the Olympic break, which served as camouflage for the Leafs other problems. The trio averages nearly 21 minutes of ice time per game(all in the top 20 in ice time) went scoreless for most of the recent five game road trip. Kessel scored his 35th goal of the season(his first in five games) and Bozak broke a four game scoreless streak with two assists against Tampa, while van Riemsdyk scored his first goal in seven games in Detroit on Tuesday.
The keys to the Leafs stabilizing are the return of goaltender Jonathan Bernier, who took to the ice for the first time on Wednesday since being replaced by Reimer in Los Angeles last week and veteran center Dave Bolland, who has been out since early November with an ankle injury.
The timeframe for the return of both players is uncertain. Based on the instability of Reimer’s recent play, the Leafs would prefer to get Bernier back in the lineup for critical weekend games against Montreal and New Jersey, but will evaluate his status at practice on Friday. Bolland continues to skate with the club and was seen skating harder this week, so the veteran’s return could be imminent.
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Leafs defenseman Paul Ranger was released from a Toronto area hospital late Wednesday evening after leaving the game on a stretcher late in the first period after being hit from behind by Tampa’s Alex Killorn.
Killorn was given a five minute boarding major and game misconduct, but according to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the league’s department of player safety will not review the hit for supplemental discipline.
The Leafs announced that the 29-year-old blueliner was taken to the hospital for precautionary reasons and was "stable, conscious and alert."
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