The Toronto Maple Leafs are hoping that blowing a four-goal lead in a loss to the bottom-dwelling Ottawa Senators is not the beginning of patch of problems, as they take on their provincial rivals in the second of a three-game series at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday.
The Senators fell behind 5-1 lead late in the second period, as Auston Matthews scored a pair of goals but sat back and allowed Ottawa to climb back into the contest with a short-handed goal late in the middle frame, a pair of goals early in the third, Evgeni Dadonov’s tying goal late in regulation and breakaway goal in overtime.
The Leafs will be looking for more contributions from their second line unit that has struggled over the last few weeks to take some of the burden off Matthews and Mitch Marner to produce on most nights. Even though John Tavares has 15 points in 16 games, the Leafs team captain has just one goal the last 10 games. Linemate William Nylander has gone ice cold, with two goals in his last 15 games and no points in the last five.
"I think that you can tell (John is) fighting it a little bit right now, but I I focus on a lot of the positive things that have come out of this game. At the start of the season. the first 10 games or so, he was skating as well as I've seen him skate my time here and throughout the season, I know you want to focus on is production and all those kind of things, but we've asked all of our players to be more responsible and aware defensively, and to me who's been terrific in that regard." Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said on Wednesday morning.
(With Nylander), the defensive stuff we've talked about is a factor and I think (William) is right there to, along the same lines. The number of goals and offense that he's given up while he's been on the ice has reduced and his goal shares up higher than it's been in his career. I look at that and I also look around the league and we have high expectations for those guys, (and) rightfully so given their ability. They have high expectations of themselves, but you look at the 16 games and again it's way too early to make any sort of statistical determinations, but the production is right there was a lot of teams in the league in terms of first line players (and their) five on five production."
Keefe indicated that there will be no lineup changes for the Leafs, which means that Frederik Andersen will make his 10th straight start in goal. The contest is the first of back-to-back games against Ottawa, so it is likely that backup Michael Hutchinson will make his first start of the season on Thursday in the series finale.
Matt Murray has been cleared to play after missing two games with an upper body injury and may get back in goal for the Sens on Wednesday.
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