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As the Toronto Maple Leafs continue to struggle for wins holding a current record of 3-5-2 in their last ten games played, there seems to be some positives to take away as their most recently play may to be trending in the right direction.
After a few poor games, in addition to an abysmal loss to one of their biggest rivals on Saturday night, the Leafs were beginning to be labeled as a team lacking the effort and drive needed to win games. Of all criticisms toward the team, it has been Coach Randy Carlyle who has been most dissatisfied of late, but remains optimistic.
“There are things we need to address and we’re not going to hide behind that,… Carlyle said. “The stress level is high, almost to the boiling point at times.“But our job is to show leadership. If we’re going off on the players on a continual basis, they’d become numb. Screaming and hollering, we’ve done enough of that at times. Now is the time to accentuate the positives they bring and to correct and coach the negatives out of them. We believe the corrections are adaptable.…
New to the roster this year alone, the Leafs have added Dave Bolland, David Clarkson, Jared Smithson, Patrick Holland, Mason Raymond, Paul Ranger, Jon Bernier, and Trevor Smith. In addition to these acquisitions, Toronto also has rookie Morgan Rielly playing his first NHL season. Moreover, Toronto has a few players who are playing in just their second season with the team such as James van Riemsdyk, Jay McClement, and Frazer McClaren. If you add up all the above mentioned players, Toronto has 12 players currently part of their roster who have very limited experience playing as a group. While the core of the team, if you will, have played together for a few years, adding all these players over the last season or so will certainly add to the challenge of icing a unanimous roster.
With that being established, the Leafs have displayed two different styles of hockey to the world; one that is hardworking and systematic, and another that is lackadaisical and disorganized. To play into the latter, a team who were once leaders in shot blocking, hits, and specialty teams, has been dropping in each respective statistic over the past month. And while it has been apparent that the largest area of concern with respect to their game is the defensive play, the interesting part for me is that they have also struggled scoring.
Thought to be a very strong offensive team both upfront and on their backend, Toronto currently ranks 15th overall in terms of goals scored per game. And while many would argue that their goals against average per game has held them in many games, it equally suffers being ranked at 16th overall.
That said, there is certainly room for improvement in all aspects of their game at the moment, and it should follow that with improvements and added confidence in one area, the other should slowly follow.
As mentioned, Toronto has provided it’s fans with two different styles of hockey of late, and it is certainly difficult to get a good understanding of what is really going on with this group unless you have the opportunity to study them up close, and personal. Well, thanks to HBO, we will all be provided with such an opportunity as their crew begins filming the team as early as today in preparation for the Winter Classic.
“Guys are definitely more excited than not, because it’s one of the best networks to showcase what NHL players do, and everything it takes for us to put in, on a day-to-day basis, what it takes to be professionals,… said Leafs defenceman Mark Fraser Tuesday morning. “[I was impressed by] how accurate it was in portraying the games, and what it’s like to be an NHLer, good and bad. You see the pressures on guys, and how coaches can get on guys.…
As Fraser states, HBO really seems to have a way to shed light on the inner workings of teams and it will be interesting to see what really goes behind closed doors with this group who continues to experiences its fair share of losses, injuries, and occasional successes.
With respect to the injuries, it appears that winger Joffrey Lupul who continues to suffer just about every injury possible to a hockey player, could be back in the lineup very soon as he was skating with the group yesterday and didn’t appear to show any signs of distress.
Furthermore, Tyler Bozak has been reported to have suffered an “upper body injury… during last night’s game and is currently listed as “day to day…. Cody Franson is also listed as “day to day… with a lower body injury, and there is still no real timetable available for Dave Bolland who had surgery on his ankle and has yet to hit the ice since.
Despite the challenges provided to this group, and as Randy Carlyle added, I feel that it is important to focus on the positives as they work through their difficulties as it is easy to forget just how much change this particular team has recently undergone.
Moreover, if the amount of new faces isn’t enough of a challenge to deal with for Carlyle, how about having players like Nazem Kadri, Morgan Rielly, Jake Gardiner, and JVR who are all under 25 years of age logging 17-20 minutes per game.
Although the team has experienced some success, fans need to keep in mind that the group assembled before them still has a lot of learning and development to go through before they can truly compete with teams such as the San Jose Sharks whose core has been playing together awhile now.
“We try to accentuate the positives but the big negative is we lost,… said Carlyle, who at times sounded he was going to lose his voice. “Did we give ourselves a chance tonight? We gave ourselves a chance for about half of the game. And I think that it was a measuring stick. My advice to them was this is how far we have to go. That’s the way the elite teams play in the league.…
The Toronto Maple Leafs will look to redeem themselves and break their five game losing streak against the Dallas Stars at home tomorrow night. With a relatively equal home record of 9-5-0 compared to Dallas’ road record of 9-6-0, it could be anyone’s game.
That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!