The Toronto Maple Leafs have all but sealed their playoff fate with their lacklustre performance on Saturday.
While the previous night, the Toronto Maple Leafs were incredibly efficient in dispatching the Blue Jackets, a poor display followed the next night.
The harsh reality is that if the team is to have any chance of catching the Boston Bruins in top spot, they have to win every possible game.
A loss to a basement dweller that had been soundly beaten the night before speaks to an omni-present Leafs problem.
Toronto Maple Leafs Consistently Fail To Raise Their Game
The Toronto Maple Leafs head coach, Sheldon Keefe evaluated it quite simply post-game as the team getting ‘outworked’ and ‘outplayed’. On this occasion, that’s not just coaching hyperbole either.
What it speaks to is an ongoing tendency of the team to take their foot off the gas when really they need to amp up their efforts. Instead of building on a 2-0 lead, they ended up losing 4-3.
How does this all relate to the playoff picture for the Toronto Maple Leafs, you ask?
Well, it all but assures them a second consecutive year of facing the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first-round.
To have any real chance of chasing down the Bruins, the team needed to lock away five wins (and 10 points) against the Blue Jackets, Blackhawks and Canadiens in their first five games back post All-Star break.
There would still be a reliance on Boston slipping up in this scenario too, what with 2 games in hand and an 11-point gap in the standings.
Instead, Toronto will welcome Chicago to town later this week with Tampa breathing down their necks for second in the Atlantic Division, only 2 points back and with 2 games in hand of their own.
There’s little chance that this team miss the playoffs, MoneyPuck has them a 99.6% chance at making them. However, with second place now only predicted a 53.9% chance, there’s plenty of work to be done.
Given how admirably the Toronto Maple Leafs held their own with countless players out injured, missing their starting goalie duo and all of the other hurdles this season, it’d be gutting to be overtaken in the standings.
However, it all rests on the players right about now; they know they can win games even with the odds stacked against them.
They know they can work opponents hard with offensive pressure, heck they know they can lock teams out defensively. To make it happen though, they need to grab the low-hanging fruit and pick up the easy points.
When this team can finally work out how to do that, then they’ll be laughing and a true contender. Until then, you can argue they’re only a pretender.