Toronto Maple Leafs Ice Their Way to 3-1 Loss In Sunrise

If you’ll excuse me, I’m filing a suit against the Toronto Maple Leafs to get a refund for my wasted Friday night.

24 hours removed from what was possibly their best performance of the season, the Toronto Maple Leafs decided to lay a Florida-sized egg in a 3-1 loss to the 25th place Florida Panthers.

In their most frustrating performance since…well Monday against the Avalanche, the Toronto Maple Leafs arrived at BB&T Center cosplaying as a melatonin tablet, lacking any punch in their offence and wasting a solid 26 save effort by Garret Sparks in his return to the lineup.

When you can only muster 17 shots on goal against a team that is 27th in the league in goals allowed, there is a serious problem. Call me fickle after singing their praises against the Lightning, but a Stanley Cup contender should always look their best, even on the second half of a back-to-back.

Death By Icing: A Horror In Three Periods

To steal a line from the brilliant Chance The Rapper “Let’s Do That Hockey” sketch on Saturday Night Live: “We gotta watch the icing calls, Coach said we were icing so much we could open a bakery!”

Holy mother of everything hockey, how many icing calls were there last night?! Looking on NHL.com’s play-by-play of the game, it counted 20 icing calls. You could’ve fooled me because it seemed like every time the Leafs attempted an outlet pass or were held up at centre ice they dumped it in for an icing. It stalled the Leafs constantly and they were never able to maintain any kind of dominant play aside from a few moments in the first period.

The outlet passes aren’t working, and they haven’t worked for a while. A major critique from last season was the near constant icing calls for the Leafs thanks to failed outlet passes. Achieving a play like that takes defensemen who pull them off, and aside from Morgan Rielly not too many members of the Leafs d-core can successfully complete them.

Offence? You Gonna Do Anything?

After scoring four goals against the best team in the NHL, the offence dried up just a few hours south of Tampa. When Ron Hainsey is your lone goal scorer, there’s a bit of a problem.

Auston Matthews just didn’t click in this one, with just two shots on goal, being on the ice for all three of the Panthers goals and a -5.8 relative Corsi to boot. His linemate William Nylander was worse, no shots on goal, a -3 rating and abysmal -21.8 relative Corsi. That number may be because he played four fewer minutes than Matthews, but it was clear he was having a rough game.

Mitch Marner and John Tavares were clicking, with both having great possession numbers (37.4% and 21.4% relative Corsi, respectively) but the two combined for just three shots all game. Kasperi Kapanen and Rielly both earned an assist on Hainsey’s goal continuing their stellar campaigns, but that’s about it for the bright spots offensively.

But was it the players having a bad game, or the coach for messing with a winning formula from the night before.

Mike…Why Do You Do The Things That You Do?!

Last night saw a myriad of choices by Mike Babcock that raised a few eyebrows. Playing Hainsey for almost 22 minutes while Igor Ozhiganov only played 12:44 TOI. Putting Nylander on the fourth line after the 2-1 goal for the Panthers. Taking Andreas Johnsson off of his line with Marner and Tavares to put him on a weird line with Matthews and Connor Brown, and playing Johnsson for just over 13 minutes.

And his most cruel decision, playing Frederik Gauthier for just 5:51 TOI.

Babcock is one of the best coaches in the league and is a great presence to have for the younger players, but sometimes he puts together a game that makes you scratch your head and say “Bold strategy Mike, let’s see if it pays off…”.

Last night was certainly one of those nights.

If the Toronto Maple Leafs want to make it past the first round this year, they’re going to need Babcock to be smarter with the lineups, because if they can only get one goal against a team like the Panthers, imagine how difficult it’s going to be against a team like the Bruins. Oh, wait we don’t have to imagine it, because we saw it last year, and if things don’t change we may see a repeat of last year’s seven-game series.

Thanks for reading!