The Toronto Maple Leafs lose all three games in California, but come out with one point through the whole trip.
Something is wrong here — the Toronto Maple Leafs got swept by three bottom-feeders in the Pacific division.
At first, I thought this trip would be good for the team. Get out to California, enjoy the warm weather and come out with two or three wins.
That would’ve put them much farther ahead of the Florida Panthers for third in the Atlantic. But instead, they lose all three games, don’t score on the power play and went 144 minutes without a goal.
The Toronto Maple Leafs faced three teams, who used their defence to their advantage. Yet, they ran into one team — who was missing their top-four defensemen, still lost and were almost shutout.
Nobody can fix this team, other than the players themselves.
Creating the narrative of, “Sheldon Keefe is just like Mike Babcock because he’s not changing things up,” is incredibly wrong, seriously.
If you think that always switching up the lines for the entire game will help generate goals, it won’t.
Sometimes you have to let the players battle through it. Keefe has let Frederik Andersen battle through adversity before, so why not do it with the lines during games?
The adversity should pay off, or at least I hope it will.
This road trip wasn’t bad defensively by any means. The goaltending too, wasn’t an issue.
The Toronto Maple Leafs gave up 96 shots in three games, only allowing eight goals. After the game against the San Jose Sharks, Andersen and Jack Campbell provided Vezina caliber goaltending.
It’s the players in front of them who were the problem — the forwards especially.
They’ve battled back from adversity before, winning three games in a row after losing to David Ayres and the Carolina Hurricanes.
Maybe, it’ll happen again.
The inconsistent play though, needs to stop. The Toronto Maple Leafs need to figure out how to be consistent or their playoff hopes will slip out of their hands.
And they’ve been lucky — the Florida Panthers have lost their last four games, including on to the Leafs.
Both of these teams are inconsistent, but both teams can also be very good. I think that the Toronto Maple Leafs can be one of the best, as long as they have consistency, which will eventually come (I hope).
It’s the survival of the fittest. Neither team is fit, nor are they consistent. But it’s the race to the finish — who will place third in the Atlantic by the end of this season?