Stubborn Toronto Maple Leafs Coach Tinkers at the Margins, Gets Same Result

The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost six games in a row.

After an absolutely demoralizing beatdown at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins Saturday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs clearly needed to make a change.

Anyone whose watched the team this year for any amount of time can tell you that the team doesn’t play a style of game that is compatible with the roster.

They could also name you five or ten Babcockisms they feel are contributing to the team’s misfortune (sticking with things that clearly don’t work, playing the wrong players in the wrong roles, having defensive players on the ice late in games when down by a goal, etc. etc.).

The big news going into the game was that the Leafs had mixed up their defense pairings.  It wasn’t the new coach everyone wanted, but it was something.

So how’d it go?

More of the Same as Toronto Maple Leafs Lose Again

The Leafs didn’t really change up their defense pairings.  The dumbest thing they do is play borderline NHL player Cody Ceci on their top pairing, sucking the life out of their all-star Norris worthy superstar Morgan Rielly.

They kept that intact, don’t you worry.

They did swap out Tyson Barrie for Justin Holl, but only for a period or so.

Then it was same old same old.

The good news: the Leafs were maybe activating their defenseman a bit more than they have been.  Rielly and Barrie both jumped into a couple of rushes, and the heat map for the game shows that they didn’t take their usual amount of useless point shots, and did get in some decent high-danger chances.

The Leafs did finish the night with more scoring chances and more high danger chances than the Knights.

So that’s something, but when you’re facing one of the NHL’s best teams, maybe playing Cody Ceci (absolutely awful last night, as he nearly always is) in a top pairing role, you’re going to pay.

Ceci and Rielly were partnered for most of the night, playing 17 + ineffective minutes, but for two glorious minutes, the Leafs played Barrie with Rielly and the Leafs got nine straight shot-attempts – and seven shots –  while allowing zero.

More of that please.

Speaking of Barrie, I think he had his best game as a Leaf. He was much more active and though it cost the team a goal, I’d rather see Barrie get burned trying to make something happen than see him listlessly assume the role of Nikita Zaitsev 2.0.

Barrie played nine minutes with Dermott, then went back to Muzzin. Babcock then seemed to bench Dermott, who barely played compared to the Leafs other defenseman despite seeming like he is occasionally on the verge of becoming one of their best players.

The Leafs could have won this game, but I guess when it’s your sixth loss in a row, who cares? Their top guys had lots of looks but couldn’t bury anything, and that happens.

Once again, their putrid special teams did them in.  They couldn’t draw any penalties (which is ridiculous, but maybe its time to start playing in a way that might?) and their PK was hideous, as usual.

At this point it just seems preposterous to continue on with Mike Babcock as the coach – he’s out of ideas, and no one is listening to them anyways.  Much has been made of the insane record the Leafs will need to post from here on out in order to even make the playoffs, and time is running short. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).

Overall, who cares if they could have won that game?  They are a run and gun team  that has inexplicably decided that it won’t run and gun.

So either fire the coach and get someone in there who will coach the roster he has, or fire the GM and give the coach a roster that he actually feels like coaching.

The former is the obvious move, and the latter is a move so nauseatingly stupid that they might as well make Dave Poulin the GM of such a team.

The Toronto Maple Leafs coach had a great message after the game (for those of you who enjoy smashing your heads into walls) when he said “we juts gotta keep grinding.”  Was he talking about our teeth?  Because certainly a better solution might be to realize Cody Ceci isn’t a top pairing defenseman?

Anyways, here’s hoping we get Sheldon Keefe soon, because Mike Babcock is done.